“Crime is what we were born for as k****rs.”

These were the words Free State mayor Motloheloa Mokatsane said to a crowd of black community members demonstrating outside the Viljoenskroon magistrate’s court.  

The crowd was there in connection with a gender-based violence case. 

A video of Mokatsane saying this in Sesotho has been doing the rounds on social media.

He seemed to be taken aback when community members objected to him referring to them as k****rs. Some said “no” and shook their heads in disagreement with his statement.

“OK comrades, let me put in a different way,” he said as he tried to salvage the situation.

“We, as black people, are violent and suffering violence every day,” he said.

Mokatsane’s office has since issued a statement, saying he apologised unreservedly to the community and the nation for his “reckless” use of the k-word.

“The mayor wholeheartedly retracts the use of the k-word and the offence this might have caused to the entire society,” the statement read.

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