Mayor and councillors thrown out

"The council is always making these promises. We are sick of hearing these lies"

RESIDENTS of KaMadakwa Ndlovu and Emjindini Trust in Barberton, Mpumalanga, yesterday ejected Umjindi local municipality mayor Lazarus Mashaba and his team from a meeting at Chief Funwako Secondary School.

The community became angry because the response they got from the council did not make them happy.

Resident Nomsa Nkosi, 41, said: "We have heard this before. Their response doesn't have a time-frame. How will we know when these projects they are telling us about will happen or not?

"The council is always making these promises. We are sick of hearing these lies," she said.

Another resident, Raymond Sibiya, 38, said: "They have not responded to any of our grievances. They are not telling us what we want to hear. It will take longer to deliver services to us."

The meeting started just after 2pm, but about an hour later the residents kicked the council out.

There were mumbles in the crowd as executive mayor Mashaba and council speaker Vusi Mkhatshwa addressed about 500 people.

Last week, protesters from Emjindini township, Emjindini Trust and Sincobile village marched to the municipal offices and barricaded roads with rocks and burning tyres. They looted shops owned by Pakistanis and burnt down an SME centre in the township.

Two memorandums were handed over at the municipal offices. Included in the demands is an electricity subsidy to accommodate the "poorest of the poor"; that the University of Mpumalanga be built in Barberton; that a crime-free community be maintained; that an education trust fund be created; and that the main road be tarred.

Mayor Mashaba said: "The issue of demarcation is dealt with by the demarcation board. For the current financial year, there is an electrification project between the designated area.

"We saw the main road and it is not up to standard."

A man in the crowd asked: "What were you thinking?"