The handover of the G20 presidency from South Africa to the US has taken place in Pretoria, but was shrouded in secrecy.

It took place at the offices of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco).

It’s not yet known who attended the handover.

Dirco is apparently busy drafting a statement to provide more clarity.

South Africa made it clear on Saturday that the US could not send its embassy chargé d’affaires – a relatively low-level diplomat – to receive the presidency gavel from President Cyril Ramaphosa at the G20 Summit in Johannesburg.

US president Donald Trump boycotted the summit because of a widely discredited claim that white South Africans are victims of large-scale killings and land grabs.

Handover of G20 presidency from SA to the US likely to take place this Tuesday:

Meanwhile, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi says close to 2,000 people were arrested between Monday and Thursday last week ahead of the G20 World Leaders Summit in Johannesburg. He was addressing a media briefing in Braamfontein.

Lesufi highlighted challenges and economic gains from the event, noting that some arrests involved suspects wanted for vandalism.

“We managed to arrest during this period of the G20 1,799 people. This was between the period November 17 and 20th and the arrest included suspect wanted for vandalizing infrastructure, along with individuals involved in serious crimes like theft, kidnapping, intimidation and extortion. Among this, that is amongst the 1,799 people arrested, 1,075 cases were for contact crimes, which included assault, rape, murder, attempted murder and house robberies,” says Lesufi.

Lesufi says police spent nearly R17 million on vehicles, accommodation and other costs during the G20 Summit.

He says ongoing infrastructure vandalism and cable theft are deliberate acts of sabotage.

“What pains me and worries me is a coordinated effort to vandalize our systems. The cable theft and the people that are assigned to destroy infrastructure for cable theft. It’s worrying and disturbing. I mean, you put up a traffic light today, tomorrow it’s gone, and you have to come again. You have to come again to fix the same traffic light and sabotage. I mean, at one stage, we felt that there is that hand that is at play. The problem that the saboteurs or those that want to vandalize our system didn’t know is that we had to pull the experts from all institutions of government to reside in Gauteng for that period, so that the problem can be fixed immediately,” adds Lesufi.