Three held after bus torched in North West

RUSTENBURG: Three people were arrested for public violence in Bapong near Brits yesterday, North West police said.

Lieutenant-Colonel Amanda Funani said the three, aged between 21 and 27, are expected to appear in the Brits Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

Members of the Unemployed Forum allegedly blocked the road linking Sun City and Pretoria and set a bus alight near a shopping complex on Wednesday, after they were allegedly not paid.

“This is senseless, I do not know how this can be stopped. If people are not paid that does not give them a right to burn buildings and buses,” said one man who declined to be identified.

“It seems the bus was burnt for scrap metals, all the seats have been cut off. This is not a protest, but a way to scavenge scrap metal.”

He was looking at tow-truck company workers loading the burnt bus onto a truck.

“It is a setback for workers, for the next day or two they will be running short of at least a bus, and it was burnt right here,” he said.

The Bapo Ba Mogale tribal offices were set alight on November 9, allegedly by members of the Unemployed Forum. Before that last month hundreds of unemployed people in Bapong protested at the entrance of Bapo Ba Mogale Palace demanding the traditional council recognise their forum.

They wanted the traditional council to recognise Tshepo “Stepestepe” Molaole as the chairperson of the Bapo Ba Mogale Unemployed Forum, the sole forum representing the unemployed people, alleging there was another parallel structure of unemployed people in Bapong and the mining companies wanted to deal with one forum of unemployed people.