Out on a limb at ANC’s HQ

Passers by look on at the damaged caused by a man who hurled a rock at a window next to the public entrance area to Lutuli House in Sauer street Johannesburg. Picture: Antoine de Ras, 23/08/2012

Passers by look on at the damaged caused by a man who hurled a rock at a window next to the public entrance area to Lutuli House in Sauer street Johannesburg. Picture: Antoine de Ras, 23/08/2012

Published Aug 24, 2012

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 Johannesburg - A man protesting at being unemployed used a thick branch to pound on the glass doors of Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters in downtown Joburg, on Thursday.

An eyewitness said the man pulled the piece of wood from a plastic bag as he approached the Sauer Street building.

 Security guards held the man until police arrived. On being escorted to the police van, the man wore a big smile and a striped pink T-shirt. The eyewitness, who did not wish to be named, told The Star the man had said he was angry as he had a degree but had not been able to find a job for 21 years.

He said his gripe with people at Luthuli House was that he had once approached its security guards and asked for work, and had been told to collect used cans and recycle them. This had enraged him.

SAPS spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said they were holding the man on charges of malicious damage to property. He was due to appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Friday.

ANC spokesman Keith Khoza confirmed that an unidentified man had smashed the door at Luthuli House.

He said the man, who had been screaming and started banging the door, was “not a member of the ANC”, was originally from the Eastern Cape and had told the security personnel he lived with his sister in Naturena, south of Joburg.

The Star

* We have removed the man's age as the information could not be verified - IOL Editor

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