KWAZULU-NATAL police spokesperson Captain Nqobile Gwala said a case of public violence had been opened after a municipal building, five vehicles and a grader were set alight at Izingolweni Hall.
At the time of publication, Gwala had reported the N2 freeway in Hibberdene and Izingolweni was still blocked and public order police and local police were “working tirelessly to stabilise the situation”.
Department of Social Development spokesperson Mhlabunzima Memela said the MECs for Social Development and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) had met with service delivery protesters and tasked them to form a committee to air their grievances.
“The Ray Nkonyeni Local Municipality has been faced with sporadic protests in KwaMadlala and Ezinqoleni, with protesters demanding water, jobs and the removal of councillors. The Ezinqoleni community have barricaded the N2, affecting free flow of traffic between Durban, Kokstad and Umthatha (Eastern Cape),” said Memela.
Memela also said the protest, which began on Tuesday, had disturbed a lot of business operations and resolving the issues at hand was “not going to be a walk in the park”.
Earlier this month, the Daily News had quoted Ugu Municipality spokesperson France Zama as saying Umgeni Water engineers were expected to begin work on Ugu Municipality’s northern water supply system.
At the beginning of March, the Daily News also reported that Hibberdene residents had been without water for eight weeks and the municipality had met with affected residents to outline plans and interventions in place to resolve the water supply disruptions in the area.
Local community leader Jomo Msomi said: “We have been waiting for a long time for the councillors to fix things but they keep on postponing and have not fulfilled their promises. Some areas have not had water for over 5 months. The problem is that they are playing with us and they forget that we are also working people.”
This also follows numerous calls by the DA to place the entire Ugu District Municipality under administration in terms of Section 139 of the Constitution.
Chris Pappas, the DA KZN Cogta spokesperson, said where the Ugu unrest was concerned, the premier and the Cogta MEC were “sitting on a ticking time bomb”.
“We warned the premier and the MEC that unless they took firm action in the form of placing the municipality under provincial administration, that residents would soon take matters into their own hands. Regrettably, this has now proved to be the case, with this week’s damage as a result of unrest estimated to run into hundreds of millions of rand,” said Pappas.
Daily News