SEBOKENG. – Fidelity Guard employees obviously thought their need for safety superseded the importance of a protest march by the community.

This comes after the community barricaded the intersection of Golden Highway and Polokong on Monday morning demanding that the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) Department of Public Safety hire them in a project for scholar patrollers, a project that they had been volunteering on for the past two years.

The employees, travelling in a marked cash-in-transit van, arrived on the closed road and demanded that it be opened as they wanted to go through. Three of them sprung out of their vehicle wielding firearms and threatened the protesters.

One of the guards pointed, point blank, his 9mm gun at one of the protesters while another fired his R5 rifle into the air causing protesters to scatter. Approached for comment, Sedibeng Ster was informed by an employee at the company who asked not to be named that they were not aware of the incident (the blockade) as it was not reported in accordance with normal procedure and that the driver and his crew were not supposed to move out of the vehicle without authorisation from control room even if their lives were threatened, which was not the case in this instance.

Protesters later made way for the van, ambulances and other emergency vehicles to pass. Two hours later, ELM MMC for Safety, Jan Moshoadiba, arrived to address the community.

He said that the volunteer patrollers must submit their names and that only 135 people below 35 years would to be hired.

Moshoadiba said the project belonged to a private company and the ELM was just tasked with identifying the unemployed and volunteers for application.

The protesters later cleaned the road and dispersed peacefully. No case has been opened with the police.