Enforce the law in the city or else…
YOUR front page lead story “MK vets land city jobs”, which appeared in the Sunday Tribune on April 8, refers.
They say out of Africa, especially in ethekwini, the Kingdom of the Zulus, there’s always something new.
We have a former president who is charged for fraud, corruption, money laundering, racketeering and hundreds of other charges – and his supporters treat him like a hero.
Religious leaders pray for him. These same men and women of the cloth in their colourful robes preach the word of God every Sunday and urge sinners to repent. I guess that does not include the former president.
In the ethekwini Municipality, if you need a job you don’t have to go through the normal recruitment process, for example, filling in application forms, going for interviews, waiting to be shortlisted and finally getting the job.
All you have to do is invade municipal housing projects, storm the Durban City Hall and demand to be employed. And hey, voilà, you’ve got the job.
And if you need tenders, do you follow due tender processes? No, just storm into council meetings and on to construction sites, brandishing guns and other dangerous weapons, threaten and intimidate council officials and company bosses and, presto, you’ve got the tenders.
If the ethekwini Municipality continues to entertain forceful demands from organisations such as the MKMVA and Amadelangokubona, a group of thugs masquerading as business people, it will fuel the notion that to land jobs, tenders and government contracts, all you have to do is use violence and strongarm tactics.
Are we going to be a lawless society under constant threats from organisations such as the ANC war veterans and other unsavoury elements who hold municipalities to ransom? Such Mafia tactics should not be tolerated by the authorities.
The ethekwini mayor, Zandile Gumede, seems to be a spineless leader who kowtows to any form of intimidation.
Municipal housing projects have been commandeered by so-called Struggle veterans and tenders have been waived aside in order to succumb to threats.
It seems that the ruling party under the leadership of mayor Gumede in the ethekwini Municipality has given approval to such lawlessness by yielding to their threats.
If left unchecked, this will become a growing trend, much to the detriment of law and order and good governance.
It is my firm belief that if the laws are not going to be enforced, we are on a slippery slope to chaos. SANJAY SINGH
Queensburgh