ANC MP Malgas reports ‘hijack’ threat to police
HOPE Malgas, an ANC member of parliament (MP) and former Port Elizabeth schoolteacher, has reported a former pupil to police after he threatened on Facebook to hijack her.
Thomas Ruiters this week posted that he would “hijack” Malgas so she would not make it to parliament on April 18, the day MPs are suppose to vote on a motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma.
Police spokeswoman Colonel Priscilla Naidu yesterday confirmed a case of intimidation was opened against Ruiters but no arrests had been made.
Ruiters posted on his Facebook wall on Sunday that opposition parties needed to woo 52 ANC MPs to vote with them for the motion against Zuma to succeed.
“Let’s make it 51 because I am going to hijack Hope Helen Malgas and release her after the vote of no confidence, unless we are sure she will think about her people and her constituency,” Ruiters wrote.
He further told Malgas: “The northern areas [in Port Elizabeth from where Malgas hails] are counting on you to show them that you really care about them and not the Gupta curry”.
In the same post, Ruiters labelled Zuma as the “Nkandla tsotsi” who needed to be removed.
His post attracted a flurry of angry comments on Facebook.
Malgas yesterday told the Dispatch that she took the “hijacking threats” seriously and had reported them to Bethelsdorp police in Port Elizabeth.
In his Facebook profile, Ruiters is listed as an area manager in Mthatha for one of the biggest security firms in the area. He is originally from Port Elizabeth.
Attempts to contact him for comment were unsuccessful yesterday, while the controversial post has since been removed from his timeline.
Many who commented on the post, felt Ruiters was threatening Malgas and needed to be reported to police and his employers.
Malgas is the former chairwoman of parliament’s basic education portfolio committee and is now the whip of the social development portfolio committee. She was one of the first members of the Eastern Cape provincial legislature after the 1994 elections.
Malgas said she knew Ruiters as she had taught him while she was a teacher at Arcadia High School in Port Elizabeth. —