Limpopo Premier Cassel Mathale rejected the recent police circular which forces people to give statements in English only when opening case at a police station.

Mathale criticized Limpopo police´s Deputy Provincial Commissioner Benny Ntlemeza’s instructions that all police stations are to use English only when filling in registers and dockets. Mathale said people must not be forced to use English, because they don´t know it and they stumble when they want to convey a message.

He said people must be proud of their indigenous languages and their heritage. “People must not undermine their culture for the sake of modernism. English comes from England and those who don’t know it must not be made to feel ashamed. Indigenous languages should be taught at uni-versities,” said Mathale.

Limpopo DA leader Ms Desiree van der Walt said Ntlemeza’s statements was blatantly unconstitutional and went against the language diversity in South Africa. Van der Walt said she had already submitted a letter to the Pan South African Language Board to launch an official probe into the matter.

“If the directive to use only English is found to exist, it must be replaced swiftly with the one which promotes all South Africa’s official languages. Our constitution recognizes all South Africa’s 11 languages and they are all equally competent to be used in any official state document. We have long moved away from our country’s painful past, where only two languages were elevated above all others,” she said.

She said insisting on English only will jeopardize many police cases. “Many of our ordinary citizens do not speak English. If prosecutions are to be successful, statements must be taken in the language which is understood by the complainants,” said Van der Walt.

According to Van der Walt, she had already briefed the Minister of Police, Mr Nathi Mthethwa, about the alleged existence of this instruction to police stations.

Mthethwa also expressed his condemnation and undertook to investigate the matter.