Durban - Amadelangokubona business forum leaders are defiant in their demands that they must get to share in the business opportunities in the country.
The group’s president, Nathi Mnyandu, said they would continue to shut down multibillion-rand projects - through legal processes - until negotiations around the projects benefiting a broader range of business people
and communities were completed.
Mnyandu and forum
office-bearer Bonga Shongwe are scheduled to appear in the Durban High Court on Tuesday on allegations that their group - which has been accused of intimidating companies to extract business from them - had intimidated employees of Esor Construction.
Mnyandu told The Mercury that they were looking to stop work on the R8 billion residential and resort project at Sibaya via a court interdict, until the negotiations were completed.
“This is an R8 billion project, it cannot be that the community and other business people are not benefiting from it,” he said.
Amadelangokubona was interdicted after it shut down the Sibaya project in the middle of last month.
Construction managers alleged that forum members - some of them armed - stormed the site on the North Coast last week, demanding part of the R1.5 billion project.
The Sunday Tribune reported on Sunday that major construction companies were pushing to have the leaders of the forum jailed for repeatedly shutting down big construction projects.
Esor Construction, which is building the multibillion-rand Western Aqueduct project to boost the city’s water supply, is leading the charge.
The leaders are required to come to court today to say why they should not be held in contempt of court, fined R100 000 and sent to jail for six months.
Robert Ndlela of the Federation for Radical Economic Transformation, with which Amadelangokubona is affiliated, said they would continue to fight for the distribution of wealth and business opportunities in the country, without the use of violence.
“We are denouncing violence and we have engaged Amadelangokubona on the allegations made against them. The federation is not a group of thugs, as is the perception in the media.
“It is made up of professionals and academics, who are all fighting for the economic opportunities of black people in the country.”
He said they would be going to court today.
“We will go there and listen to the allegations that are being made and, depending on what is said there, we will take further steps."
Peter Barnard, the lawyer representing companies affected by the forum’s interventions, said work at the Sibaya development was continuing.
He said the group was demanding work on projects that were already happening, which did not make sense.
“If you apply for a tender, there are specifications that you have to meet before you can get that tender.
"The problem here is that there is entitlement to demand work,” said Barnard.