Introducing our new column

The aim behind this highly informative and educational monthly column will be to educate Kathorus residents about the role of municipal by-laws in our residential areas. The column will be written by experts of the By-Laws Enforcement Unit at the Vosloorus EMPD offices.

The author will touch on a number of controversial topics and also cover a wide range of issues around the enforcement and regulation of municipal by-laws in residential areas. The topics will also cover various aspects:

• Residential properties

• Business properties

• Restaurants

• Buildings

• Petrol stations/garages

• Sports facilities, including gyms

• Religious buildings/churches

• Car washes

• Shisa nyama open restaurants

• Bars

• Taverns

• Or any place where food is sold to the public and more.

Ekurhuleni EMPD has revamped its By-Laws Enforcement Unit for the Kathorus area. Their offices are situated in the Vosloorus EMPD Precinct. Members of the public who wish to discuss the following problems can visit the unit’s offices:

• Loud all-night music from a tavern or during a party in your neighbourhood.

• Your neighbour’s starting a recycle depot next to your yard.

• A new tent church that was pitched at the resident’s park in your neighbourhood.

• Someone erects a spaza shop next to your driveway.

• Your neighbour decides to have goats or sheep in their yard.

Of course, due to lack of knowledge and understanding of the municipal by-laws in our areas that the daily lives of fellow residents are often deliberately or accidentally violated by people who fail to comply. We hope you’ll soon join us and enjoy our new effort to educate you about your municipality’s by-laws.

We also hope this new column will help residents to understand their rights and where to find answers when their rights as residents are violated.

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We all seem to be affected by the high crime wave that is sweeping through our country in one way or another.

But this is taking matters rather out of proportion. A senior police captain based at a police station in the township of eMalahleni outside Witbank has gone as far as to suggest that police stations in the area should close their doors to the general public at 6pm to protect cops from marauding criminal gangs in the area.

The scared police captain cited what he claimed were the sophisticated methods used by criminals to out-smart our criminal law enforcement officers in the fight against crime. Meanwhile, in their effort to fight back against crime, residents of another nearby township, KwaGuqa, simply raided a freight container used as a hide-out by local nyaope addicts and set it ablaze.

The head of the South African Community Crime Watch, David Wessels, seemed to be throwing his hands in the air in despair as he was quoted saying: “I do not want to be negative but I don’t know how taking Witbank from the criminal gangs in this once quite conservative platteland town is going to happen.”

But the captain’s call to shut down all police stations at 6pm because criminals are outsmarting cops is a rather defeatist response to the crime wave that is sweeping through our country like wildfire. And for the statement to be attributed to a high-ranking police officer is a rather serious indictment on our national law enforcement service.