‘Why target our church?’ Hercules congregants ask
“They want everything for mahala but they come and destroy our stuff. What do our stuff and church have to do with their demands of the municipality?”
Members of the Dutch Reformed Church Moot West say they are “gatvol” with the behaviour of Gomorrah informal settlement residents, who damaged windows and destroyed the church’s fence during a service delivery protest on Tuesday morning.
“They want everything for mahala but they come and destroy our stuff. What do our stuff and church have to do with their demands of the municipality? They just want and want. They feel nothing for the residents,” said the church’s security head and resident Johan Cloete.
“They have illegal electricity connections. The metro cut off those connections, so they destroyed the substation and now we have been without power since Monday.
“For four days, we have been running around up and down trying to protect our property in this area. I have only had three hours of sleep. We are gatvol and we going to start fighting back now.”
Cloete said in a 2019 service delivery protest, Gomorrah residents damaged the church and they had to spend over R500 000 to repair it.
“The church was vandalised by the same people from Gomorrah. Luckily, they didn’t manage to burn the building down. They destroyed the organ, the church benches – they even destroyed Bibles.”
On Tuesday, Gomorrah residents set buildings alight and blockaded the streets to protest poor service delivery in Hercules.
Police spokesperson Captain Augustinah Selepe said the protestors gathered in Van der Hoff Road around 04:30 with tyres and set nearby buildings on fire.
Hercules CPF spokesperson Jan Prinsloo said they were disturbed by the damage caused to the church.
“They destroyed the House of God; this is a place of faith and this is not the way to go. From being an elder in the church, we do not understand why people can do this. Why would they want to destroy places of faith? Even the CPF feels that this is unnecessary and uncalled for.”
Community leader Elmont Boshielo said they would not stop their protest until Tshwane mayor Randall Williams addresses them.
Boshielo said they have been complaining for many years; however, they were not taken seriously.
“We will protest until we get what we want. We want him [Williams] to explain to us why we are not getting service delivery as we have been staying here,” Boshielo said.
“We want them to give us electricity, water and roads. Our immediate demand is for them to give us temporary electricity. People took matters into their own hands and did illegal connections because they do not want to give us electricity.
“The metro came to cut it off and we don’t know what to do. People are being burnt inside shacks because of paraffin stoves and children are struggling to study because of this electricity issue.”
Community safety MMC Grandi Theunissen said the metro has noted with concern the violent protests that erupted earlier this week.
Theunissen said the protesters engaged in various acts of criminality by damaging infrastructure and private property and blocking intersections.
“While we understand that the community may be frustrated, violence and property destruction will not be tolerated,” Theunissen said.
“I engaged with the protesting community and the neighbouring residents in the formalised residential area. The issues raised by the Gomorrah community require an intergovernmental response from the Gauteng provincial government.
“Issues include building schools and clinics as well as formalising the area to receive services such as electricity. I will engage with the mayor and my colleagues on the mayoral committee. I would also like to call on the Gauteng provincial government to address some of the residents’ concerns,” he said.
Theunissen said the protests were causing friction between the protesters and the surrounding residents.
“This is a very combustible and dangerous situation. I would like to reiterate my plea to the Gomorrah community to engage in productive discussions and refrain from violent protests.
“This is completely unacceptable. The City will not tolerate any criminality.”
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