I wish I understood why managing public drinking was a “sensitive matter”, as KwaDukuza spokesperson Sipho Mkhize told us last week.
If our esteemed government has put these laws into place why does it appear that our municipality is nervous about enforcing them?
In my mind it is pretty straight forward: people are breaking the law and infringing on everyone else’s right to enjoy public places without fear of molestation and violence.
Down the road in Durban, cops pour confiscated alcohol right down the drain.
Yet in KwaDukuza we cannot enforce the law lest we offend lawbreakers.
At the same time we are most certainly offending international and local tourists, and law-abiding citizens of all colours and creeds. It’s bizarre.
Just today I heard of a family, one of many, looking to sell their holiday home.
The agent says they never want to return after their last visit.
Surely this is what should make our elected officials sit up and take notice.
Our beaches are all KwaDukuza has in terms of tourism.
This is our one drawcard.
Everything else are just spinoffs from this one main attraction.
Lose that and we are dead in the water.
If we wait much longer to act our reputation as a destination of choice will have suffered lasting damage (all the work of Enterprise iLembe to draw tourists sabotaged).
Already the reviews on sites like Airbnb are reflecting bad experiences with drunken and unruly behavior.
At last Tuesday’s IDP road show in Salt Rock KDM’s community safety and security director Moses Faya said the municipality was working on a plan for the festive season.
He said access to Ballito was more difficult to control than Zinkwazi and Blythedale beach – which had experienced similar problems.
Fair enough.
But I did not see a single roadblock in Ballito this weekend, or any weekend before that.
It is important to make great plans, but in the meantime it is even more important to begin.
While a roadblock, or even better, a posse of officers stationed on the steps down to Thompson’s Bay, might not solve our problems but it would go a long way in the right direction.
Word would quickly spread that KwaDukuza is not tolerating public drinking and disorderly behaviour and the troublemakers would find somewhere else to party.
The plan is to be presented to the portfolio committee this week and then the executive committee.
We wait anxiously to hear it.
Mkhize said KDM lacks the manpower and the jurisdiction to enforce its bylaws.
A little searching produced the Government Gazette, 19 October 2018, titled ‘Declaration of peace officers in terms of section 334 of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977 (act no. 51 of 1977):
Law enforcement officers appointed by a municipality’.
It states that peace officers are mandated to uphold any by-law or regulation made by or for the municipality.
This supports what the police have told us, they are the ones who support the peace officers when they need back-up and not the other way around.
If we do not have enough manpower then excellent, here is one problem that should be easy to solve.
Tell us about the plan to hire more peace officers.
This is what residents of KwaDukuza want to hear, concrete plans to resolve an intolerable situation. Residents will be delighted to hear that rates are being put to good use.
Mkhize said the police must first perform a ‘threat assessment’ of the area to determine whether extra policing is required.
This weekend the beaches were a disaster zone so that box should be ticked by now (Never mind that we have been reporting on this issue since last festive season. . .).
Mayor Dolly Govender, let this be your first decisive act as mayor and be remembered for restoring law and order in your municipality.
Now is the time to stand up: we, your people, need you.
