Angry mob forces mayor, officials out of municipal building

KEISKAMMAHOEK government officials, including the mayor, were forced out of their offices by a mob yesterday.

This follow’s Monday’s police action in which a service delivery protester was shot dead, despite holding up his arms in a show of non-violence.

A crowd of about 600 angry protesters forced Amahlathi municipality mayor Pakati Qaba and officials out of the municipal building.

Afterwards, Qaba and four councillors sat in a double-cab bakkie a few metres from 20 police members armed with semi-automatic rifles.

People shouted at Qaba: “Leave this office!”, “You better fix this town!” and at police: “We are not scared of you!”

Qaba wound down the window and said: “This is a surprise because we did not ignore the community. There are structures within our council which deal with their concerns.”

She said the municipality was working on plans to upgrade the condition of the roads in the area.

“We are working with our IDP document. We take some projects which are in the IDP and, according to the budget available, work with that,” Qaba said.

“There are services that are happening in our community and planned projects of road construction for this year and next year.”

Qaba said municipal buildings and equipment had been damaged .

“At this moment we didn’t go and see the damage in the satellite office,” she said.

“The residents did not want us to go through to the site, but they damaged offices and equipment.”

Border Alliance Taxi Association chairman Peter Mgunculu said residents wanted the mayor out office.

“The mayor must be chased away because we have given numerous grievances to her but she has not done anything,” he said.

“People want to talk to the premier [Phumulo Masualle] or EC ANC chairman Oscar Mabuyane so that our issues can be addressed.”

Cooperative Governance MEC MEC Fikile Xasa was allowed into the municipal buildings yesterday but protesters would not speak to him. They wanted to talk to Masualle and Mabuyane.

Xasa, who was seen making calls, said both leaders had been informed of the situation.

“These are issues that we should have attended to but we need to improve on coordinating our effort to fix this,” he said. “It should not have come to this point and is regrettable.” – Daily Dispatch