Beach revelry issues escalate as festive season safety plan comes to an end

The tragic drowning of a young man at the Salt Rock tidal pool on Sunday night has again drawn beachfront policing into tight focus.

The circumstances of how the drowning occurred are unclear, but the 20-year-old man from Driefontein remained in the pool overnight before being discovered by early morning bathers on Monday morning.

Paramedics said they found his body in rigor mortis, indicating he had died the night before. A post mortem is still to be conducted.

“We must allow law enforcement the space to conduct their investigation into the tragic drowning that occurred, without premature speculation. I send my condolences to the family of the young man,” said Ward 22 councillor, Privi Makhan.

The incident follows two weekends of sustained revelry at Salt Rock main beach after festive policing initiatives ended on January 9.

While concerns were raised after the weekend of January 16, it was hoped this was an isolated issue and that things would return to normality.

This was unfortunately not the case, with Salt Rock residents again reporting high levels of noise and litter this past weekend.

“The abuse of public open spaces is a growing concern across KwaDukuza. Local government and Saps both have a responsibility to ensure that by-laws are enforced and social ills are curbed. We will be using all mechanisms at our disposal to compel law enforcement to implement more stringent controls,” said Makhan.

“We must also engage constructively as a community, with the understanding that there are no outsiders or insiders when it comes to the use of any public open space. KwaDukuza beaches belong to everyone,” she said.

The festive season was an undeniable success in terms of policing and safety, seeing a reduction in terms of drownings, rescues, total calls and car accidents compared to the previous year.

This was accomplished with the help of additional lifeguards, pointsmen and police constables who were employed over the festive season, along with buy-in from a number of public and private stakeholders.

But as extra resources were withdrawn on January 9, so too have issues increased.

“The Community Safety business unit has faced some major challenges, including a shortage of manpower and patrol vehicles. There is also the impact of loadshedding, forcing the Community Safety’s Traffic Department to draw resources from the coastal operations to deal with traffic monitoring at main accesses and at traffic lights to get vehicles through,” said KwaDukuza municipality spokesperson, Sipho Mkhize.

Extra constables deployed to Umhlali Saps have also since been withdrawn.

“Next year we need to plan at least until the end of January, because the date of normal levels of beach use is being pushed back every year,” said Umhlali Saps spokesperson, captain Vinny Pillay.

KDM said regular patrols and multi-disciplinary law enforcement operations will continue through to Easter.

Whether this will have the desired impact remains to be seen.

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