Durban — Mariannhill residents, who were protesting over electricity outages, blocked roads to the suburb but were dispersed when police fired rubber bullets at them on Monday.
Residents of Mariannridge and surrounding areas claim they have been without electricity and water for more than a week – at times they have intermittent electricity supply.
Recently an informal settlement sprouted up in Mariannridge adding to the community’s demand for service delivery.
On Sunday night, angry residents took to the streets.
Police spokesperson Constable Thenjiswa Ngcobo said a group of people blockaded Milky Way Road in Mariannhill with burning tyres and stones. Public Order Police were on the scene monitoring the situation.
The eThekwini ward 13 councillor, Reginald Cloete, said the protesters were coming into the area from adjoining wards. Cloete said the problem residents were facing was the electricity outages.
“On Sunday, when they began burning tyres, there was a team of electricians in the area working on the problem of a medium voltage cable. When the tyres were set alight the electricians got scared and left the area,” he said.
Chairperson for the Patriotic Alliance in ward 13, Roxanne Pennington, said Cloete should have addressed the issue of electricity cuts, ageing infrastructure, damages to road infrastructure as a result of service delivery protests, flood relief and housing.
“We are standing in solidarity with our neighbouring areas to seek an amicable non-violent solution to current events.
“We want to expose current injustices meted out to the community of Mariannridge, New City and Dassenhoek. We have very poor service delivery or basically no service delivery.
“We form part of ward 13 and feel we are receiving the back-end of service delivery. Residents want to be seen and heard and want answers,” Pennington said.
Mariannridge resident Debra Lee said while she was washing dishes in her kitchen, a tear gas canister struck her window and exploded in front of her. She said the police were chasing protesters through her area and firing randomly at them.
“My brother ran in and took the cartridge and threw it over the fence. I began gulping for air, struggled to breathe and vomited. We had no electricity from last week Tuesday.
“Then it was a week without water. We had to clear most of the food in the fridges. Nobody can live like this on day-to-day basis. The lack of leadership or feedback set people off. Can we survive another week without basic services?” she asked.
Meanwhile, protests also took place in the Mpophomeni area of uMngeni Local Municipality.
Mayor Christopher Pappas said residents of a small area were refusing to allow the municipality to conduct meter audits. He said a blown transformer affected about 130 to 150 houses.
“The transformer blew because of overload. The municipality must conduct an audit before repairing the transformer.
“Our contractors’ vehicles were damaged after trying to restore electricity. The staff were also shocked by the incidents. This type of criminality cannot be rewarded,” Pappas said.
Daily News