The African National Congress's (ANC's) internal fighting is depleting the police of resources, recently installed Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula said in Nyanga on Wednesday.

''The police are not a branch of the ANC,'' said Mbalula to an auditorium overflowing with community representatives who were there to raise crime concerns.

''But we are depleting the police with those fights,'' said Mbalula.

''Because I have got police there guarding people who are supposed to be working on the ground.''

Mbalula was one of a number of Cabinet ministers who survived President Jacob Zuma's midnight Cabinet reshuffle on March 31.

He had been the Minister of Sport and Recreation, and took over from Nathi Nhleko who had once stoically explained how the taxpayer-funded swimming pool included in Zuma's private security upgrades was actually a ''fire pool''.

Mbalula did not elaborate, but said ANC MP Dr Makhosi Khoza has reported receiving threats from the African National Congress Youth League in eThekwini who called for a picket outside her house.

She had penned a message on Facebook to say that she could no longer vote for an ''amoral leader''.

It also emerged in April that former African Union Commission chairperson Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was receiving presidential police protection.

'Murder capital'  

Mbalula's visit to Nyanga, regarded as the ''murder capital'' of South Africa, was to listen to residents' complaints about policing there. They were upset about slow response times, too few vehicles, overworked detectives, and not enough police for such a vast area.

They were also cross that not all of the Community Policing Forums and Neighbourhood Watches were receiving a stipend to cover some of their costs. Hot on the heels of Zuma's visit to nearby Elsie's River last week to pay respects to murdered 3-year-old Courtney Pieters' parents, Mbalula sat at a table that represented the top brass of the police and the Hawks.

Those at the top table with him included Deputy Minister of Police Bongani Mkongi, Western Cape police commissioner Khombinkosi Jula and acting Hawks head Lieutenant General Yolisa Matakata.

Between them, they told a smaller audience in the auditorium and a larger audience in the community hall that they would sort things out. They heard that 101 new officers had been sent to the Nyanga cluster, and they would also be getting new police vehicles.

And, said Mbalula, the proposed R100-million new police station in Muizenberg would not go ahead, if he had anything to do with it. The money would be better spent on building satellite police stations for communities in Nyanga so they could get help from the police easier, he said. He hoped to have news for the community within the next two weeks on a satellite police station.