Ward 105 councillor’s offices torched
Service delivery offices of Ward 105 Councillor Tefo Raphadu at the Altrek Sports Facility were gutted by a fire believed to have started by protesting Amarasta community who were demanding to be connected to electricity in their informal settlement.
A fuming Ward 105 councillor Tefo Raphadu was at his wit’s end when he tried to comprehend the reason behind a group of people who torched his new offices at Altrek Sports Facility on June 16.
While everybody celebrated the heroics of the students of the June 16 Uprisings in 1976, a group, claimed to be ‘Amarasta’, took to the streets to vent their anger about the lack of electricity supply in their informal settlement.
The protesters were said by witnesses to have burnt tyres in front of the gates of Altrek Sports Facility in the East Bank section of Alexandra along East Bank Avenue. The protest was said to have turned nasty when some of the protesters then torched Raphandu’s office which had been opened early in January this year.
The office was opened due to a request from his ward community that he move closer to them from the centralised offices at Thusong Multipurpose Centre in 8th Avenue, which had proved to be too costly for residents to get there.
“The office serves more than 300 people on a daily basis and now people will not be able to receive services just because of a few people who are aggrieved with something and they decide to burn [down] the office.
“I take great exception that if people are aggrieved with some or other service delivery issue then they must burn another outlet that gives them service. It’s really not proper and I cannot seem to stomach it. I consider such people to be hooligans,” said a fuming Raphadu.
“This is a sad day for service delivery in the ward. We hope law enforcement agencies will get to the bottom of this and quickly pick up and arrest the perpetrators of this evil deed.”
It was not known how much of the office was consumed by the fire nor the cost of the damage.
This is a developing story and Alex News will keep its readers updated as more information becomes available.
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