DAANTJIE – The Thembisa Community Hall has become a place for crime and drugs, and a home for criminals.
This place was built for community activities, meetings and for pensioners to receive their social grants, but today it is criminals’ most targeted place.
Its infrastructure is damaged, there are no doors anymore and the windows are broken.
This paper learnt that young boys ganged up in dark alleys to rob people of their belongings even in broad daylight. It was also alleged that some spent the night there targeting passers-by.
Members of the community feels unsafe as it is a public place people pass by every day. These gangs also use the hall as toilets and it smells of urine and human faeces.
Early this year, a child was raped in the hall in the daytime. Ms Futhi Nkosi, a resident, said, “One of our neighbours was recently robbed. They took money and her cellphone.”
Another community member said, “Not long ago, we heard a woman screaming, we were so scared to come out to help her because we feared for our safety. We will be grateful if the government could do something about this. It will be better if they could fix the place and hire a security guard.”
The local councillor, Mr Press Mhaule, said he was not the one in charge of the hall.
This paper tried several times to get hold of spokesperson, Mr Joseph Ngala of Mbombela Municipality, but to no avail.
