Man arrested for breaking windows at Concourt

THOSE passing through Constitutional Hill yesterday were shocked to see the precinct around the court cordoned off with red rape.

Police were scouring the area after a man shattered several windows.

The damage to the Constitutional Court is the second attempt at paralysing the country’s national key points.

Police said there were staff inside the court when the incident took place.

They said: “Police responded to reports of a man breaking windows with a hammer at the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg. The suspect, who is 36 years old, has been arrested and charged with malicious damage to property and will appear in court soon.”

Throughout the week, security experts warned that South Africa had to beef up its security at its national key points, such as water reserves and power stations.

This came after a man was arrested this week for being in possession of a hand grenade at a Bloemfontein airport.

The secretary-general of Saftu. Zwelinzima Vavi, said the state had been caught out.

“There is no capacity in the state if you have government burning and you go and arrest someone who is not well upstairs or someone stones the constitutional court.

“There was ammunition stolen from the police and it was circulating and then it is the army and the Hawks pointing fingers at each other. There is no state, the state is hollowed out,” he said.

Vavi said this was not the president’s problem but that of the governing party.

Political analyst Xolani Dube said the events were proof that the ANC was not ready to govern. He said that with the attacks on national key points the State had reached incompetence.

“This is a display of ANC incompetence. They were not ready, they put their own president at risk and they burn their own,“he said.