Day Zero meeting ends in profanity
Bonteheuwel residents, councillor disagree about agenda items
CLAIMING to have been verbally abused, a ward councillor stormed out of a meeting held to inform members of the Bonteheuwel Ratepayers and Tenants Association (Breta) about Day Zero, leaving them fuming.
The meeting was arranged by ward 50 councillor Angus McKenzie after Breta contacted the sub-council chambers for information about Day Zero water collection points. Instead, Breta secretary Nicolene Manual said the meeting had been disrupted.
“The councillor, in his opening, spoke to the community in a condescending manner about his pool and saving water. We’ve been saving water for how long now? People got restless and wanted to ask questions.
“They told us the very same things they told us before and we said we don’t want to hear that. We thought it was going to be about Day Zero and the water points, but he left before we could ask anything,” said Manual.
However, McKenzie said the meeting was never about Day Zero. He invited an official to speak about water-saving measures in Bonteheuwel, but before the official could finish, he had profanities thrown at him and was told to shut up.
“I requested that he be allowed to finish, but they continued to disrupt the meeting, being offensive with the official. I told them I would not allow the abuse of the official and would have to close the meeting. “I was spat at and told something awful. “I asked them to post videos on Facebook as many people took videos and photos because then you would see what I was talking about. They verbally abused myself and the official,” said McKenzie.
He said the members who spewed verbal abuse were not from Bonteheuwel, but were from the Tafelsig Activist Forum, whose chairperson, Sulyman Stellenboom, confirmed he was present at the meeting on behalf of the Water Crisis Coalition, but he denied the accusations made about profanity.
Stellenboom said, “we never stopped the meeting”.
“He decided to stop the meeting. His words were that he had better things to do than sit there. I say he is a failure. He failed the people of Bonteheuwel.
“I challenge him to lay a charge against me. He has a right to lay a charge against me but I won’t be blamed for things I didn’t do.
“After he left, we had our meeting,” Stellenboom said.