Ex-combatants demand answers
The ex-combatants who demonstrated in Germiston on Thursday have been described as attention seekers.
So says the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality’s (EMM) mayoral spokesperson, Mr Zweli Dlamini.
The group of about 30 people demonstrated outside the council buildings, demanding to speak to the mayor or the member of the mayoral committee (MMC) for community safety, Clr Mthuthuzeli Siboza.
Mr Mandla Sibeko, who spoke on behalf of the group, said the members present were all a part of the demilitarisation project.
The project was to demilitarise the former members of the military wings of political parties.
This includes former members of the Self Protection Unit (SPU) linked to the IFP, the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) linked to the PAC, the Azanian National Liberation Army (AZANLA) linked to AZAPO, the Self Defence Unit (SDU) and Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK) linked to the ANC.
Mr Sibeko said they demanded to see the mayor because there has been no progress with integrating them into the metro.
“During the time of the previous two mayors, Mayor Duma Nkosi and Mayor Ntombi Mekgwe, there were some of our members who were integrated to the metro. Since the current mayor took over, nothing has happened. He only employed the demilitarisation manager – who is doing nothing. This project was supposed to be finished by the end of July but we still have 781 members who are yet to be integrated,” said Mr Sibeko.
He added that there was an agreement that the members would be employed in different departments based on their skills.
“We want to know why is the project not continuing? What is the manager of this project doing every day when he comes to the office? Like always the mayor and his MMC hides behind these men (Metropolitan Municipality Police Department, EMPD) with big guns when we want to talk to them,” said Mr Sibeko.
Mr Dlamini, said the mayor could not address the demonstrators because he is in the council meeting and there were procedures for dealing with their concerns.
“We could not divert from our processes for them. There is an office dedicated to them. They should use it if they have concerns. There is a council meeting going on and we cannot divert our processes for this,” he said.
Mr Dlamini did, however, say that the matter is being addressed by the metro.
“This is one of the matters close to the mayor’s heart. We have a demilitarisation office dealing with this issue. There are processes under way to deal with the demilitarisation in Ekurhuleni. They have coordinators who know everything about what is happening. These are a few disgruntled and impatient individuals. This project involves more than 700 people, the number of people who are here shows that the majority understand we are doing something about their plight,” said Mr Dlamini.
