ETHEKWINI Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda has appealed to KwaXimba residents to refrain from resorting to violence to resolve service delivery issues after municipal vehicles were torched on Sunday.
The municipality said the incident happened while eThekwini Water and Sanitation Teams (EWS) were in the area to ensure that the community has access to clean water.
This comes after municipal workers were held hostage by members of the community in March.
The municipality said police had to be called in to release the hostages.
“It is not for the first time that we have incidents of this nature and it is very concerning,” said Kaunda.
He said what made matters worse was that the workers were hard at work in the area trying to solve the problem.
“Our communities must refrain from unlawful conduct,” he said.
Kaunda said replacing the damaged vehicles would cost the City a lot of money and that the same community was likely to suffer.
There is no number of grievances that justify resorting to violence, he said.
“As a temporary measure, we have ensured that water tankers are on the ground. All we need is for the community to be patient as we are working to return the situation to normalcy,” said Kaunda.
He appealed to the police to leave no stone unturned and to arrest the people behind the “barbaric act”.
THE MERCURY