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Dog excrement smeared on a fence outside a BP garage in Salt River, allegedly to keep immigrants from sitting on it. Refugee rights group Passop is to lay a complaint with the SA Human Rights Commission over the incident.

SIBUSISO NKOMO and MURRAY WILLIAMS

Staff Reporters

BP is to be taken to the SA Human Rights Commission by a refugee rights group after immigrants complained that dog faeces had been smeared on a fence outside one of its petrol stations to prevent them from sitting there.

Passop (People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty) was to submit a complaint with the the SA Human Rights Commission today.

Pictures taken by Passop show faeces smeared along the length of the wooden fence on the perimeter of the garage on Durham Avenue in Salt River.

Immigrants sit on the fence while they wait to be picked up for casual work. Passop claims BP staff told them the head of security at the station was responsible for smearing the faeces on the fence to try to keep them away.

But petrol station manager Alan van der Walt described the act as “disgusting”.

“I only found out yesterday, when I began speaking to staff. It apparently happened on Monday evening.

“It’s disgusting and a health risk – we can’t have things like this happening.”

Van der Walt said he had instructed his staff to begin cleaning up immediately. This had begun last night and was continuing this morning.

He had studied CCTV camera footage to see whether they could identify the culprits, but the cameras, unfortunately, focused mainly on the petrol station’s forecourt.

In response to the allegation, he said: “There is absolutely no way we would ever condone something like that.”

Passop director Braam Hanekom said the complaint would be against “inhumane treatment and behaviour and an additional complaint of xenophobia will be laid because of the observed targeting of immigrants”.

“Representatives will hand over photos and video footage on behalf of the many job-seekers affected. On the morning of Wednesday October 12, members of Cosatu discovered faeces were smeared on a picket fence on the street in front of the BP garage in Salt River.

“The low picket fence was where immigrant job seekers sit daily. They were informed that only the picket fence on the roadside where immigrant job seekers wait was smeared,” he said.

Passop project co-ordinator Anthony Muteti, who helped investigate the matter, said the smearing was done on Monday.

“The guys who were there said it is the second time. We condemn it in strong terms.”

Muteti said BP workers started to remove the faeces yesterday at 6pm after Cosatu and Passop went to the station.

“Apparently the boss at the garage feels the guys are a nuisance to motorists who come to fill up. He would not speak to us when we went there.”

Asked who had made the allegation, Hanekom said: “Some of the BP staff told us they believed it was a head of security (at the petrol station).

Hanekom said none of the people who made the claims had personally seen the dog excrement being applied to the fence, but that they “believed” that this person had ordered it.

sibusiso.nkomo@inl.co.za