ActionSA Member of Parliament Dereleen James will on Tuesday lay criminal charges against Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie, following what the party says are intimidatory tactics and threats.

Charges will be laid at Cape Town Central Police Station.

On social media, McKenzie is alleged to have threatened James by indicating he had "beefed up" his security and suggesting she should do the same.

The party said the threats arose directly from James’s probing during the Ad-hoc Committee into alleged links between the leadership of the Patriotic Alliance and alleged Big 5 cartel member Katiso Molefe.

ActionSA said it viewed McKenzie’s alleged repeated attempts to intimidate James as a “direct attack on an elected public representative carrying out her constitutional duties to expose criminal capture by drug cartels in South Africa and believes that such conduct must be addressed in accordance with the law”.