Ngcobo shut down by exasperated protesters

THE town of Ngcobo was brought to a complete standstill yesterday by hundreds of residents, business owners, taxi drivers and ratepayers who thronged in front of the municipal offices to tell mayor Lizeka BongoTyali, municipal manager Silulami Poswa and the entire municipal council to resign and go.

They want the municipality to be placed under immediate administration.

Garages, shops, businesses and even government offices were closed.

Traffic on the R61, which cuts through the town, was halted by the protest, with huge tree stumps causing traffic to back up for hours.

Several articulated 22-wheeler trucks were stranded.

About 400 residents, led by Sanco, the Black Business Forum, Ngcobo youth and taxi owners, marched to the municipal offices.

They accused the Poswa local administration of failing to deliver on roads, water, sanitation and RDP houses.

Black Business Forum secretary Mcebisi Mgudlwa said that since 2013 they had written more than five petitions complaining of the lack of service delivery. He accused the municipality of nepotism and corruption, and of wasting taxpayers’ money on several projects left incomplete despite service providers being paid.

“We want a new administration here because we don’t have any councillors representing us in this municipality,” he said.

The protesters complained that multimillion-rand tenders were given to people connected to municipal bosses, while small businesses were sidelined. “We wrote to [cooperative governance and traditional affairs] MEC [Fikile] Xasa about the mismanagement here but he never did anything about it,” said Mgudlwa.

Leaders of the protest spent more than three hours meeting with a representative from Premier Phumulo Masualle’s office inside the municipal offices. They demanded that Masualle address them by 10am today. —