The Department of Local Government and Housing received information about a march taking place from Bramfischerville to Dobsonville council offices.
“We have unconfirmed information that the march was not authorised to take place. Those who are organising the march did not receive permission to march from either the magistrate or the council. We are informed that the march will take place on 25 March 2010 at 10h00 and the memorandum will be handed over by 11h30 and this information we got from our sources in the community” said acting MEC Nandi Mayathula-Khoza.
“We will continue to support all the peaceful protests from any community as long as they have permission. However we are concerned that the marches we are witnessing are not all about service delivery, they are instead aimed at toppling sitting councillors from office come 2011,” said Acting MEC Nandi Mayathula-Khoza.
“Even the current protest being organised is confirming that people are unfairly targeting councillors and painting them as problems. In fact we are informed that the Councillors; Patricia Magubane and Wilson Mfaba responsible for the two wards in the area held meetings with the public and stakeholders on 11th and 14 March 2010 respectively,” said MEC Mayathula-Khoza.
“We are also informed that the issues raised by the marchers have been sufficiently dealt with by both council and the provincial government. One of the issues we hear they are raising is about the houses sitting on a wet land. Indeed the issue was dealt with by the department of housing and 55 people were identified to have been affected.
The department offered to relocate them but the only available project to relocate people was at Lakeside next to Orange Farm. Of the 55 people only two agreed to be relocated and the other 53 people refused. We do not have any available project to relocate them to at the moment” said Mayathula-Khoza.
“We are also informed that they raised an issue of street lighting, electricity problems in Bramfischerville which were also dealt with in length by the councillor of the ward. For this reason we are beginning to doubt the sincerity of these protests as many of them are aimed at attacking the integrity of the councillors” said Mayathula-Khoza.
“If the march organisers concerns were that, what they have raised with the councillors have been disregarded, they could have gone to the office of the chief whip or written a petition to the office of the Speaker in council.
“We understand that it would not have attracted media attention but the issues would still have received attention from the proper authorities. We are informed that the police have information about the planned march and we would expect them to deal with any lawlessness that will ensue. We would like to advise people to look for alternative routes from where the march will be taking place” said Mayathula Khoza.
For more information please contact:
Fred Mokoko
Cell: 082 4478 407
Tel: 011 355 4013
E-mail: Fred.Mokoko@gauteng.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Local Government and Housing, Gauteng Provincial Government
24 March 2010
