GEORGE GOCH: A Crowd of angry George Goch hostel dwellers burnt a truck and a bakkie at Vickers Road on Wednesday morning, 2 March, in an attempt to get the City of Johannesburg’s (CoJ) attention.
The brave Southern COURIER team approached the crowd that was standing on the side of Vickers Road, screaming at the police, firefighters and fearful pedestrians who wanted to walk past the crowd. The crowd told the COURIER that they were only getting started.
“We are striking because we want Madam Speaker of the City of Johannesburg, Conny Bapela, to listen to us. They decided to split Ward 65 and Ward 118 and now Ward 65 has more people who used to be in Ward 118. We do not want that. They did that without consulting with us and we tried to address them through the right procedures but they did not listen. We want things to get back to the way they were. We want the madam speaker to come and talk to us,” someone in the crowd said.
The residents said people should not think the strike is for basic service delivery such as water and sanitation. “We have all that,” one of the strikers said.
These men and women from the ward that is currently governed by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) said they are only just getting started. “For as long as they do not listen to us, we will not stop. We will be here all day and even tomorrow. We will close this road. We will even burn the trains crossing Vickers Road on the bridge. We will block also the N3 to get madam speaker’s attention,” one of them said.
The ground was full of rubber bullets that were fired at the loud, angry crowd. Firefighters were escorted by members of the JMPD and the SAPS to extinguish the remaining fires from the burning trucks.
