DURBAN Metro’s attempt to dump vagrants in Umdoni can only be seen as an attempt to destabilise our area.
We don’t know yet whether it has been happening on a regular basis, but Durban Metro was certainly caught red-handed yesterday. We have the photographic evidence to prove it.
Durban mayor councillor James Nxumalo will obviously not admit to sanctioning the operation, but there is little doubt that it is linked somehow to the “Clean My City” campaign that he launched in March.
What Durban attempted to do was basically make their problem ours in a very sinister and callous way.
Surely this in itself must be seen as criminal.
This all happened very quickly, so we haven’t been able to get official comment from our own mayor yet, but we do know that our local SAPS boys are livid.
They have been under the cosh for a spike in crime in Umdoni and now we might well know the reason why.
It’s only common sense that vagrants dumped here, far from there normal stomping ground, are going to turn to crime to pay to get back to familiar territory.
If a victim of crime in the Umdoni area can prove that the culprit is one of these “dumped” people, Durban could well be in for a civil law suit of mammoth proportions.
Not to forget the vagrants themselves. Unless Durban Metro can prove that these people were arrested, charged and being transported to a police facility somewhere, in effect, they were “kidnapped”.
Hopefully heads will roll.
