No move on cards for addicts
Individuals from council's law enforcement department took it upon themselves to drop the vagrants in the Lower Illovo area.
The city has no plans to move vagrants and drug addicts to Lower Illovo.
That’s accoring to Metro Police and ward 97 councillor, Andre Beetge whose office investigated and conducted interviews with all relevant individuals and institutions and found the allegations to be entirely unfounded.
“While there were past discussions on the possible use of the Sakhithemba facility as a halfway house for select individuals entering a programme under the supervision of professionals – and irrespective that no budget or other resources had been requested or allocated since the 2013 discussions – there has never been any discussion or plans towards an en masse relocation of vagrants, homeless or drug addicts towards the southern areas,” said Cllr Beetge.
Regarding last week’s incident where vagrants were dropped in the sugarcane field by Mother of Peace (MoP), Beetge said individuals from council’s law enforcement department and not Metro Police as reported took it upon themselves to drop the vagrants in the Lower Illovo area. “This is unrelated to any previous discussion on the possible use of Sakhithemba by the Safer Cities department.
We have requested that the actions of these individual law enforcement officials who acted outside their mandate and area of jurisdiction be subjected to an internal investigation and consideration of disciplinary action.”
