UPDATE: City buckles to demands
This is the second time this month that meetings held at City Hall have been disrupted by protesters.
PROTEST action, intimidation and violence have broken out at venues across the country this past week and are fast becoming the norm in civic society. Durban was no different on Tuesday when a group reported to be dissatisfied Metro Police officers stormed City Hall and barged into rooms where caucus meetings were underway. The illegal protests have led civic action group, Save Our Berea, to mark Tuesday, 23 February, as another sad day for democracy.
This is the second time this month that meetings held at City Hall have been disrupted by protesters demanding the city responds to their demands. Last week council bodyguards disrupted an executive committee meeting in the boardroom, demanding grievances regarding salary increases be addressed, which the municipality bowed to. The municipality announced on 16 February that the Executive Committee had tasked relevant City officials to investigate the delay regrading processes looking specifically at the security unit.
It was also reported this week that a group, allegedly guilty of harassing municipal and contract workers, forced the City to capitulate to its demands. Earlier this month the city obtained a high court interdict against the group to stop it harassing workers. At the time, city manager, Sibusiso Sithole said the municipality would not be held ransom by a “bunch of thugs,” but this week the Municipality announced that it had “struck a deal” with the group that calls itself a Business Forum, and agreed to provide training for group members to teach them how to tender for council contracts. In return, the group agreed to stop disrupting council workers from carrying out service delivery work in areas across the metro.
Martin Meyer, who was in a DA caucus meeting inside the old council chambers at City Hall on Tuesday afternoon said the rowdy group, some of whom were armed and dressed in police uniforms and wearing SAMWU t-shirts, barged into the room singing and dancing and demanding that Metro chief, Eugene Nzama, be removed from his post. “As we were having our caucus, we heard the noise outside City Hall. The next moment they burst into the room singing and dancing. We had to withdraw to another room.”
For councillor Rick Crouch, the bigger issue was that there was no security at City Hall.
They simply stormed through the front doors which should have been locked by security. Not to mention the metal detectors that do not work as all the wiring is broken. There is absolutely no security in the building, and all of us who have to attend meetings in the building should be fearful, he said.
According to reports the officers decided to march on City Hall after the city manager failed to address complaints they had presented to him last week. The officers were promised last week after meeting with Musa Gumede that the city manager would meet with them this week to address their concerns. When the city manager failed to arrive, the group decided to go down to city hall and find out for themselves what the hold up was.
Commenting on the incidents, Kevin Dunkley from Save Our Berea said the dissatisfied Metro policeman illegally invading City Hall, followed hot on the heels by City leaders capitulating to violent and illegal protests and intimidation by the so-called business forum wanting their share of the tenders handed out by the City, showed how the City was just ‘giving in.’
“This past week saw the very bodyguards who are meant to protect our top elected officials putting them under threat with their intimidating, illegal entry into an Exco meeting to put forward their demands. No action was taken. This year we have had two protests by bus drivers who have blocked freeways costing the economy a lot of money when we can least afford it. Last year we had violent taxi protests, with the burning of council vehicles, over the impounding of taxis. The city capitulates and the vehicles are released with no fines. The outstanding fines by taxi operators run into hundreds of thousands of rands. This is without the example of national road closures by ANC members protesting against sitting councillors from their own party and others protesting lack of service delivery. As a civic action group, a simple cornerstone underpins our campaign. Enforce the law and respect the Constitution of South Africa. That same constitution says, in Section 9 of the Bill of Rights, that ‘everyone is equal before the law,’ but are we?” asked Dunkley.
He said Save Our Berea wanted to know what law-abiding citizens had to do to get service delivery.
“We pay our rates and therefore pay our city officials and councillors, yet we are ignored. When angry citizens suggest a rates boycott, we say no, it is unlawful. We must therefore ask our Mayor, our City Manager, our speaker, our Exco, what we must do to get their attention. Must we too engage in violent protest? Must we too burn vehicles and buildings to enforce our rights?” he said.
“Are our leaders so easily intimidated that there is one law for some and another for others? It was this kind of injustice that brought about the overthrow of the former regime, to be replaced by a new democratic South Africa. Yet the people, who are meant to lead, either are not concerned or else they lack the courage to act as they pay lip service to the Constitution and the very provisions of our democracy,” he said.
