Safer Cities reveals strategy to deal with whoonga crisis

eTHEKWINI’S Safer Cities senior manager, Nomusa Shembe, addressed a group of interested persons at a meeting on Thursday to explain what social programmes the city had in place to deal with the whoonga problem currently plaguing Durban and its suburbs.

The meeting was organised by Charlotte Mbali of Life Long Learning-KZN.
Cheryl Johnson, one of the founder members of Save Our Berea was among those who attended the meeting. She said Shembe revealed that her department had been tasked by city hall in February to set up structures to deal with the whoonga crisis. Her department had since then put in place a seven-part social intervention strategy to deal with whoonga addicts. The strategy included outreach and reception, psychological social support and screening, treatment and rehabilitation, skills, sport, life and entrepreneurial skills development, ID and birth certificate registration, reunification and reintegrations and shelters and halfway houses.

Shembe said in spite of the programme and setting up tents in areas frequented by addicts, very few had taken the opportunity available to them. She said tents were erected in parks to receive addicts as well as the Dennis Hurley Centre where social workers were available to them.
She said an estimated 500 whoonga addicts, of which about 450 had been documented by her team, roamed the streets of Durban or slept in local parks. Of those who had been documented, very few had registered for rehabilitation. She said the drop out figure was disheartening and only a handful were currently still in the programme.

Shembe said the clean-up operations by Metro Police and SAPS had exacerbated the problem by dispersing many addicts into the suburbs or driven others back underground into the tunnels. She said police had loaded addicts into busses and transported back to their communities in Umlazi, Kwa Mashu, Chesterville and Chatsworth, and had been dropped them off outside police stations. In some instances, members of their own communities (and their own families) chased them away.
She said moving addicts ‘destabilised’ the ‘community’ and supply chain briefly, but that addicts would eventually regroup either at, or near their original spot. “This is already happening in Davenport Park and at the bottom of Che Guevara Road,” she said.

According to Johnson, Shembe claimed that information made available to them suggested that dealers were using the tunnels at the bottom of Che Guevara Road for storing drugs. She said Sundays were known as ‘free ride’ days where dealers offer free drugs either to introduce ‘newbies’ to the drug or to those unfortunates who are already hooked to keep them ‘sweet’.

“Safer Cities has identified a suitable building in Illovo in which to set up a whoonga rehabilitation centre. The cost of refurbishing this building is estimated to be in the region of R8 to 9 million which will be funded by ratepayers,” said Johnson.

While Save Our Berea commends City Hall for taking this initiative it is clear to us that there is no quick fix. The social intervention will sadly yield minimal positive results. Not only does the healing process take time, but more challenging, victims of this horrible drug must want to be healed in the first place. This, in our view is the biggest stumbling block. Nobody can force him or her to enter a rehabilitation programme. In the meantime, addicts will need money to feed their habit and they will turn to crime to get it. The community of whoonga addicts living on our streets is a problem of enormous proportion that requires a holistic and lateral thinking approach to solve. It will need enforcement plus a social programme that works in harmony with us, the community. All three must get involved. This is our view,” said Johnson.
While we commend City Hall for establishing of a rehabilitation centre in Illovo, it will take time to set up (unless Exco can fast-track and override due process). In the meantime, the residents of Illovo are already putting together a petition that opposes the setting up the rehabilitation centre in their area. They will resist it with all their might, according to a woman who attended the talk and who lives in Illovo. She made it clear they do not want whoonga addicts in their town.