Letsike asks Home Affairs to review Sandton suspect's immigration status

Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities Mmapaseka Steve Letsike has asked the Department of Home Affairs to urgently consider the presence and immigration status of a man identified as Mr Lawrence Chamurwa Mudzinganyama in South Africa.

The request follows an incident at a Sandton establishment in which, according to the Deputy Minister’s statement, misogynistic conduct was directed at a group of women after they rejected his unwanted advances. Threats of lethal violence were captured on video.

Letsike said the threats cannot be dismissed as an unfortunate exchange or a momentary loss of temper. In her reading they reflect the entitlement that sits along the continuum of gender-based violence and femicide, the belief that a woman’s autonomy is an insult to male authority and that she may be punished for exercising it.

She said rejection, anger, intoxication, wealth or social standing, perceived or real, can never excuse the harassment, humiliation or threatening of any woman in the Republic, and that the Constitution guarantees women the right to agency.

Home Affairs petitioned

If Mudzinganyama meets the statutory grounds for classification as a prohibited or undesirable person under sections 29 or 30 of the Immigration Act, Letsike said, the department must act decisively and impose the full consequences the law permits. Her office will petition the Minister of Home Affairs on the matter.

She also amplified the condemnation of the conduct by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide and Substance Abuse.

The criminal question now rests with the courts. Letsike said the proper judicial process must determine criminal liability, and welcomed that the suspect has been processed by the South African Police Service and must appear before a court on 1 October 2026. She said no one should prejudge the outcome of that process.

Corporate and state consequences

Letsike welcomed Moriel Infrastructure Group’s removal of Mudzinganyama as Executive Chairman and Director, Steyn City Properties’ termination of his lease, and the investigations ordered by Ministers Barbara Creecy and Dean Macpherson into the company’s SANRAL contracts and CIDB gradings.

Those steps, she said, do not replace the criminal investigation. They do show that threats against women carry social, institutional and economic consequences, and cannot be dismissed through an apology or an appeal to wealth and influence.

“These interventions demonstrate what a whole-of-society response should look like. Accountability must follow a perpetrator into every space from which power, status or impunity is derived,” Letsike said. “There must be criminal accountability where an offence has been committed, professional and corporate accountability where codes of conduct have been violated, and public-sector accountability wherever state contracts or public resources are involved.”

Her statement closes on the wider point. At a time when the country is confronting intolerable levels of violence against women, she said, society cannot normalise the language of murder or treat threats against women as entertainment. Women must be able to say no and continue with their lives without fear of retaliation.

Source: South African Government, Deputy Minister Mmapaseka Steve Letsike condemns misogynistic conduct against women