Durban - Anyone caught peeing in public from Friday is in for a R40 000 fine or jail as the first of a raft of new by-laws in Durban get the go-ahead.
Years of work by city officials to repeal municipal by-laws from the 53 different councils that were amalgamated to form the eThekwini Municipality after 1994 are ready for implementation.
The first, the Public Nuisance By-Law, comes into effect on Friday. But business and hospitality representatives are sceptical about whether the by-law will be policed or enforced.
Cheryl Johnson, of Save our Berea, said while they welcomed any by-law that would halt the “anarchic” situation in the city, she doubted it would be enforced.
“But how are they going to police it? We have a spike of crime on the Berea. Nearly 20 Durban High School pupils have been mugged while walking to school since the beginning of the year. We have muggings in our parks on a regular basis. We can’t walk along our streets in safety,” she said.
Alan Vels, who heads the hospitality industry body Fedhasa, agreed that it “would be interesting to see how the by-law was implemented and monitored”.
“I am sure it might help small businesses, but I don’t think it will make a difference to the hotel industry,” he said.
City spokeswoman Tozi Mthethwa said she wanted to assure the public that the metro police was trained and ready to implement the new laws and this would result in a major clean-up in the city.
She said the printing of new by-law books was under way and they would be ready to hand out to officials and law enforcement officers on Friday.
“Training of officials to enforce the by-law has been under way for months.”
The new by-law, said Mthethwa, would give law enforcement officials the clout to bring members of the public who littered, defecated, were drunk, broke or damaged a tree, or hung their washing in a public place, and beggars, to book.
At a presentation to the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry to warn businesses that the law was pending, local government law expert Gabrielle la Foy, the head of the unit that has been responsible for the redrafting of the laws, said since 2000, the municipality had been at work unravelling 53 local council by-laws.
She said most were in contravention of the country’s constitution. “We have to repeal all the old legislation at the same time,”she said.
As a result, between now and the end of April a raft of new by-laws would become effective in the metro.
Mthethwa said they would stagger implementation of the new laws.
* To read the bylaw go to http://iol.io/bakxh or visit the city’s official website http://iol.io/bakxj.
The Mercury