A group of Right2Know campaign members picketed outside the city hall on Thursday morning demanding that the full council reject proposed amendments to the Rules of Order which will effectively lead to the public and the media being barred from certain sittings of the eThekwini executive committee.
Later this afternoon councillors are expected to vote for or against the adoption of these amendments which have been slammed by the access to information advocacy organisation as being against the spirit of the constitution.
Ngazini Ngidi, the Right2Know co-ordinator in KwaZulu-Natal, said the organisation planned to mobilise the broader society against the amendments being implemented in eThekwini.
“If they (the council) do not heed our call, we will go back to the drawing board, this is definitely not the end. We are going to fight this,” she said.
Meanwhile a group of residents from Bottlebrush informal settlement, in Chatsworth, and their neighbours were kicked out of the council sitting after demanding electricity.
The residents from the informal settlement want the municipality to electrify their homes. “We have been at Bottlebrush for 20 years and there is no electricity there. That is why now we decided to come here and hear when are we getting it because we keep getting promises,” said Noloyiso Godongwana, one of the residents at the informal settlement.
Also part of this group demanding electricity, were residents of the formal houses neighbouring the settlement.
“Residents from the formal houses have decided to come together with those from the informal settlement. We want the municipality to give them electricity so that they will stop stealing electricity from us. That way everyone will be happy. At the moment we suffer electricity outages everyday and it takes about four days for us to get reconnected,” said Fatima Ismail, a resident of Raffia Road.