Service-delivery logjams to take centre stage at Zuma's meeting with mayors Oct 15, 2009 11:57 PM By SIPHO MASONDO, ZANDILE MBABELA, AMUKELANI CHAUKE and DOMINIC MAHLANGUThe violent and bloody protests sweeping through townships in Gauteng and Mpumalanga will be "high on the agenda" when President Jacob Zuma meets more than 280 mayors and municipal managers on Tuesday.
In Sakhile township outside Standerton yesterday, pleas for "calm, order and stability" by Deputy Police Minister Fikile Mbalula and Deputy Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba fell on deaf ears.
After the two emerged from a six-hour meeting with mayor Juliet Radebe-Khumalo and the town councillors - whom protesters are demanding be fired - residents were unimpressed.
Said Zwelethu Mahlangu: "They don't know why they are here. We have no choice, the protest is going ahead. This is not a joke. We are here to say the mayor and the council must go. We will intensify the protests until they go."
Another resident, Thabo Selepe, agreed: "Bring Zuma here. We don't bargain for this, we demand it. There is no going back, there is no retreat, no surrender. People have died because of this, others have lost their jobs."
Residents claim at least two people have been killed in the protests in recent weeks. Scores have been injured and public buildings and councillors' houses have been torched.
Yesterday, residents of Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg, burned tyres, vehicles and rubbish skips to back their demand for houses and the "recall" of mayor Amos Masondo - who last visited the township a year ago - and their local councillors.
The SA Communist Party chairman in Diepsloot, Abraham Mabuke, said Masondo and "his people" had promised three times that 12000 low-cost homes would be built in the area by 2010.
"They said they would start building houses in March, but we are still waiting. They haven't even started digging or anything to give us hope that they will deliver," he said.
Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at the protesters, injuring 19 of them and one policeman. Diepsloot had followed the lead of protesters in Sakhile and Palm Ridge, east of Johannesburg, where 71 people were arrested for public violence on Monday.
Diepsloot resident Neria Lamola said: "Just like the people in Standerton, we will keep protesting until they deliver on their promises. I don't care if we die in the process because they are now shooting at us."
Also yesterday, 30 people were arrested in Matafeni village near Nelspruit, after roads were blockaded and a police vehicle torched. Protesters were demanding the school they were promised when they were moved to make way for a 2010 World Cup stadium.
Sakhile has been ablaze since Monday. The Times has seen protesters hit by rubber bullets, police break down doors to homes and municipal offices set alight. Brandishing a machete above his head, Siphiwe Radebe said yesterday: "We are not playing, we are at war here. You see that council building there? We will set it alight as well. It's just a matter of time."
Inside the municipal offices, Gigaba said the problems stemmed from "weaknesses in leadership". He accepted residents' grievances, which include poor credit control, ineffective billing, the employment of unqualified officials and the disappearance of R30-million from the council's account. But he said he and Mbalula did not have a "mandate" to fire the mayor or councillors. Protesters vowed more trouble.
Said Sipho Sibeko, part of the crowd that waited, in vain, for the two deputy ministers to address them: "From now on there will be riots. Standerton is going to burn. No one is going to rule this town. It will burn like hellish fire. We are not going to relax."
Two councillors resigned this week, but Radebe-Khumalo said she was not going anywhere.
Zuma will be flanked by top ministers at the meeting with mayors in Cape Town. They include Minister of Monitoring and Evaluation Collins Chabane, National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel and Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale.
Presidency spokesman Vincent Magwenya said service delivery would be "high on the agenda".
"People have the right to protest. What is of concern is the violent and destructive nature of the protests," he said.
Lebohang Mokwena, of the Centre for Policy Studies, blamed the increase in protests on a failure by the government to tell residents how it works.
"When residents complain about poor housing, they take out their anger on councillors. Housing is not a local government mandate, but a provincial one," she said.
ANC policy guru Joel Netshitenzhe said a possible cause of the protests was divisions in " local leadership structures of the ANC". "Everyone starts to believe that, to be listened to, we must destroy state property, we must break the law. And over time, the more we allow that to happen, the more it eats into the legitimacy and authority of the state," he said.
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