Watch: Protesting Joe Slovo community tired of lack of services
The clubhouse at the Reiger Park Sports Arena was also burnt down during the protest which started on Monday night.
Disgruntled residents of Joe Slovo informal settlement are sick and tired of waiting for what they call empty promises made by the ANC-led municipality.
The community took to the streets on the morning of December 4 and blockaded St Anthony’s Road and Leon Ferreira Drive with tyres, stones, rubbish bins and tree branches.
They complained about the lack of electricity supply in their community.
No arrests have been made in connection with the damages to the clubhouse and the municipality infrastructure, including traffic lights and road signs.
Police reportedly arrived at the stretch of road during the night and used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Despite the police efforts, the agitated crowd reportedly intensified their protest in the area until 11.30am.
One of the community leaders, who only identified himself as Mlanjeni, told the Advertiser they had been waiting for the new government to supply the area with electricity for years now.
“We have been waiting for more than 25 years for the ANC-led government to deliver the services we were promised.
“The government had, among other things, promised to re-block and electrify our area, but for all these years we haven’t seen any positive move towards addressing our issues.
“There have been many meetings with authorities and several memorandums were handed over during previous protests and meetings, but no one takes us seriously as nothing has changed.
“We want the mayor and his MMCs to stop paying lip service to our needs. It’s time for action,” said Mlanjeni.
- Housing
Another community leader Gladys Thenjane added her community also have issues with the government housing project taking place next to their homes.
“It appears the Reiger Park people living in proper houses do not want us to benefit from the project, even though the houses are being built next to our shacks and hostel.
“The reason we are protesting is that we too also want better services, and we are sick and tired of these unbearable living conditions in our current homes.”
- Memorandum
The Ekurhuleni ANC Chief Whip Jongizizwe Dlabathi arrived, escorted by the EMPD, and accepted the memorandum of grievances.
He told the protesters he would see to it that the relevant departments act on the community issues as soon as possible.
Dlabathi, however, expressed his disappointment at the destruction of the clubhouse and the infrastructure, saying residents shot themselves in the feet, because the property is there to be used by the very same community which destroyed it, and that money that can be used to improve their lives may be now directed to repairing the damaged property.
Dlabathi reiterated the mayor’s statement that the metro has committed to electrifying all the informal settlements in Ekurhuleni.
He told the crowd to remain patient because projects of this magnitude do not happen overnight because of the work and costs involved.
The community of Slovo also raised serious concerns about the clashes causing rising tension between the informal settlement community and those who live in the established sections with proper houses and all the basic amenities.
“The coloured community harass us, open fire on us, removed our illegal electricity connections, and they refer to us as foreigners who do not belong in the area (Reiger Park). We don’t take kindly to being treated like that in our own country,” said Thenjane.
- Clashes
The Advertiser previously reported that the Reiger Park people living in the sections with bricks and mortar houses and having access to basic services, recently clashed with the informal settlement residents in a fight over cable and electricity theft in the area.
On October 11, the Reiger Park community took matters into their own hands and removed all the illegal connections that were being used by the residents of the informal settlement.
They claimed that the illegal connections by the shack dwellers have been subjecting the whole community to constant power outages.
The community’s action, however, did not sit well with the people of the informal settlement who then on October 12 gathered and proceeded to the power lines to illegally reconnect electricity.
The community of Reiger Park, however, prevented the informal settlement dwellers from connecting electricity illegally, and this resulted in a fight, which saw both parties punching each other and pelting each other with stones and other objects.
The two parties have since then been at loggerheads over the illegal connections, cable thefts and allocation of basic social services.
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