KaNyamazane protests: The aftermath

KANYAMAZANE – Police remained on high alert in this township on Monday as residents continued to threaten to resume their protest action.

Aside from their fury over their damaged houses, they have started to turn on one another, blaming the violent protesters for a food shortage.

According to St Peter’s School principal, Jacques Janse van Rensburg, about 15 of his pupils missed school last week and about five others’ parents moved into guest houses or hotels in Mbombela so that their children did not miss school.

Miriam Ngonyama, another KaNyamazane resident that Lowvelder previously reported on, said her granddaughter, who is a grade eight learner at Lowveld High, could attend school on Monday because she stayed with a friend in town.

In KaNyamazane the streets were rampant with children in school clothes who claimed they are not attending “because of the strike”.
The biggest issue raised by the community was that of houses not being fixed after a terrible hailstorm hit the township in May.

“My whole house is f*#?ed up! The situation is f*#?ed up,” said an angry Selina Cynthia Nkosi. “This has been going on since May 27. It was a Sunday and I was going to church and now my whole house looks like this. They are late. They must come and fix my house.”

Hers was one of 2 130 houses that were damaged by the storm. Only 200 of these have been fixed in the past two months, a statement from the Department of Human Settlements’ spokesman, Freddy Ngobe, confirmed last week.

READ ALSO: VIDEO: KaNyamazane protests enter second week

Monday was quiet until about 09:30 when the community headed in their masses to KaNyamazane Stadium. It was here that Mpumalanga premier Refilwe Mtsweni was scheduled to address the community from 09:00 on the various issues that have arisen in the protests that started last week Sunday.

When she did not arrive by 10:00, however, the community was fed up and just as fast as about 400 people came to the stadium, they left. Even though it seemed that the protests have come to a halt, the stores at the KaNyamazane Centre are still closed.

People state that even though the protests are important, they are in dire need of the essentials that they cannot get from the closed and looted shops. On Thursday the same people who were protesting all through the week, started to clean the streets after they were paid by an anonymous source.

The police are still on high alert and ready for whatever chaos may come. TJ van der Walt, from Natpro security which attends to the KaNyamazane Centre, said it will be closed until after the premier has addressed the community.

READ ALSO: UPDATE: KaNyamazane protesters get paid to clean up their mess

This includes stores like Shoprite and the pharmacy where residents buy their essentials. Thando Dlamini, who is a spokesman for the National Government Communication and Information System, told the newspaper on the scene that the community said again that they only want to speak to the president.

“We are hoping that the premier will assist in the situation and then correspond with the president,” Dlamini said. “We can see that the people are struggling to buy essentials like food.”

A number of shops were looted during the protests last week. “We don’t have bread or airtime,” said Dinah Lekhulele who Lowvelder had previously wrote about. Her house was severely damaged by the storm in May. According to her, she had insurance on the house and when the insurers came to fix it, they were chased away.

“I did not even report that my house needed to be fixed because I knew I had the insurance,” Lekhulele said. The Department of Human Settlements initially removed her roof and she was living under a tarpaulin. They then replaced her roof but she is still without a ceiling. They also left her without electricity, a satellite connection and water as cables and the geyser were damaged during the repairs.

“They have made it worse than it was. It is very unfair, but the strikes must continue until the houses are fixed – enough is enough.”

Another consequence of the ongoing protests is the fact that children are unable to attend schools. In other parts of the Lowveld, where protests are also raging, a group called Success Professional Tutors has started giving extra classes to grade 12 learners on Sundays as their final exams are getting closer.

Ngobe said the contractors are eager to go back to work as soon as the community would let them. “There were earlier reports that contractors were not paid, that allocated budget has been depleted and the project is grounded. The department can categorically state that these reports are misleading,” Ngobe said in a statement.

According to a statement by SAPS spokesman Brig Leonard Hlati, the police are on high alert. In the statement provincial commissioner Lt Gen Mondli Zuma reiterated the position that everyone has the right to protest on any matter that they feel strongly about as long as the protest is undertaken within the prescripts and confines of the law.

Blockading roads, looting businesses, destruction of property and infrastructure are unacceptable and will, therefore, not be tolerated at any time during the protest action.

The Kruger Lowveld Chamber of Business and Tourism (KLCBT) said in a statement that it was becoming increasingly concerned about the continuing protest action and is working behind the scenes to prevent the protests from hindering tourism potential.

“The protests have a huge impact on tourism and business growth as some of our members have not been able to operate and have had their shops looted,” KLCBT president Oupa Pilane said.

A date for the completion of the houses had not yet been given.

READ ALSO: UPDATE DAY 3: KaNyamazane continues to burn

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