Municipality plans to visit angry Thembeni protesters

KwaDukuza Municipality is planning to visit the angry Thembeni, Groutville residents who have resorted to protesting the long delays in the completion of RDP housing in the area.

“We cannot at this point pronounce on any issue relating to the protest itself as we will be visiting the community in a fact finding mission next week to determine the genuine concerns behind the protest to give effect to issues that are being raised and to provide responses to some of the concerns,” said  Sphelelo Ngobese, Communications & Knowledge Officer KwaDukuza Municipality.

“We cannot altogether, provide inadequate information that may influence the public in a negative light or misrepresent the community hence, we will only comment after the engagement.

Last Thursday 1500 people from Thembeni stormed the N2 in protest of the delay of RDP housing.

The mob set fire to the offices of the Zikhuluse Construction company, responsible for the construction of 1980 RDP houses, after rumours that they were to pack up shop.

The protesters blocked the N2 at Groutville and the link road between the N2 and the R102 with burning tyres, tree branches, cement pipes and dustbins offloaded onto the road.

The highway was closed for most of the day and briefly on Friday morning residents attempted to repeat Thursday’s activities but were dispersed by the police.

On Thursday traffic was backed up on the R102 for kilometres due to traffic being diverted from the N2.

“We are tired of waiting while there is no progress on the construction of the houses. There has been no work done this year, so we decided to express our anger,” said   Groutville resident,  Xolani Mpyngur.

If the municipality did not give a favourable response by Monday next week, he said they will be back on the streets.

“What you saw last week was just a beginning. We will be causing more trouble because it looks like we are being unfairly treated,” said Mpyngur.

He also claimed some of the RDP houses had been ‘sold’ to people who are not Thembeni residents.

“That is the worst part. There are people who live in mud houses that could fall apart at any time. They have been waiting for years and at the end, their houses are being sold. This was reported to the authorities but nothing is being done,” he said.

Councillor Innocent Nxumalo admitted that the municipality had not achieved this due to “technical problems” experienced by the company that was installing toilets, therefore Zikhuluse Construction could not complete the construction of the houses.

Mpyngur said the housing project started in 2012 and they were told that it will be complete in three years.

This is not the first time the community has taken their anger over the promised RDP houses onto the streets.

Last November after they protested, KwaDukuza mayor, Ricardo Mthembu held a public meeting when he promised that by December 15 last year, 50 houses would be completed and allocated to residents. He said the rest of the 1980 houses were to be completed and handed over by March this year.

Residents said this did not materialise and no one has bothered to inform them on the cause of the delay.

KwaDukuza SAPS acting station commander, Mdumseni Nene said police arrested one person for public violence and that some residents were found with items suspected to be stolen from the construction offices that were burnt.

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