Police Minister Bheki Cele has pointed at KwaZulu Natal (KZN) as the number one province to produce hitmen in the country. Cele said this yesterday during a meeting with izinduna representing thousands of hostel dwellers in Johannesburg in an effort to foster community policing and improve relationship between the SAPS and hostel dwellers.

Cele met with izinduna from 16 hostels in the Johannesburg district in Pimville, Soweto. Some of the izinduna raised concerns about high amount of serious and violent crime, slow response time by police and that hostel dwellers are often blamed for crime which they don't commit. Cele told the izinduna that most hitmen are from KZN. "A lot of these criminals are hitmen from KwaZulu Natal," Cele said. He made reference of Fisokuhle Ntuli who is facing murder charges of the late Orlando Pirates and Bafana Bafana goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa. Ntuli is currently serving six life terms with and an additional 39 years in jail for different murders of taxi owners and politicians.

Cele also mentioned the murder of acting chief financial officer at Tembisa Hospital Babita Deokaran who was murdered in August 20121. Deokaran was killed outside her home in Johannesburg after flagging irregularities relating to supplier and service providers that were doing business with the hospital, resulting in payments of more than R850 million. Six suspects have since been arrested and charged with her murder. Cele says the suspects are all from KZN and they were hired to kill Deokaran. " All of the suspects in the Tembisa hospital killing are from Ladysmith in KZN. They were hired to go to Tembisa and kill that woman. There is no reason why they murdered her, but they were just hired to kill," he said. He said he was not making up the stories and that it has been proven in most cases that the hitmen were from KZN. "There are people from Eshowe who went to Cape Town to kill someone. They had no getaway car and travelled back home in a taxi, they were arrested at a bus stop. Imagine going all the way to Cape Town to kill someone. They were hired to go and kill," Cele said. Cele said it break his heart to know that most of the hitmen are coming from KZN. "These people are paid lots of money to kill. It's a business that is linked or sponsored with large funds. It is hard to deal with it. These people kill from politicians to taxi owners, entrepreneurs and people in top positions. The sad part is that all of them are from the KZN province. It has become fashionable to become a hitman in KZN," he said.