A meme doing the rounds on Facebook claims South Africa’s national police commissioner Khehla Sithole blamed white people for crime in the country.
It reads: “White people brought crime to South Africa, they brought things they knew we would be tempted to steal, just to make us look bad.” It shows a photo of Sithole speaking in parliament, and attributes the quote to him.
But the quote is completely false. 
In December 2018, the South African Police Service issued a statement dismissing it as a “fake news story”.
“The SAPS can state categorically that the utterances attributed to the National Commissioner are untrue,” the police said.
The statement called on people to ignore the false claim, and not share it.
For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false
A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?
Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.
Publishers guideAfrica Check teams up with Facebook
Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.
The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.
You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.
Further Reading
‘A time of crisis’: fact-checking South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2023 state of the nation address
As he tried to reignite the enthusiasm of a wearied nation, did the president get his facts right? As we found out, it's all in the details.
[email protected]: The challenges of working across Africa
Misinformation knows no borders and Africa Check often responds to similar false claims from country to country.
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