Pakati urges restraint when residents exercise democratic right to protest

WITH next year’s general and provincial elections a few months away, there is likely to be a spike in service delivery protest that often turn violent with residents vandalising property and looting.

Such violent protests led to former President Jacob Zuma, while delivering the Day of Reconciliation address in Port Elizabeth in 2015, describe SA as a violent nation that had not yet healed from its past.

Just like Zuma, Buffalo City Metro mayor Xola Pakati has called on residents to exercise their democratic right to protest in peace.

Delivering the state of the metro address at the East London ICC, the mayor said burning a clinic while demanding a school, was not necessary. “We must ask ourselves here today, what kind of activist burns down a clinic to demand one public amenity, prevents children from going to school because there is an issue of temporary employment in a community project?

“Criminality is now masquerading as revolutionary activism, agent provocateurs dress in T-shirts of popular organisations to achieve ends that are worlds apart from those communities and the organisations whose objective they purport to advance. We call upon citizens, religious leaders, civic structures and youth formations to reclaim our communities from these elements that are destroying our communities in the name of service delivery.”

Residents have been protesting, demanding improved services from government. One of those communities is Breidbach, where residents have on separate incidents closed the N2 between King William’s Town and EL with burning tyres, demanding RDP houses be built for them.

“It has become normal for these elements to burn down public infrastructure and call for the removal of a councillor without a mandate of electorate and a petition reflecting the aspirations of the entirety of the people in the community,” the mayor said.