Angered township residents are set to toyi-toyi again this week, following Mayor Vumile Lwana's failure to meet with them in person as promised two weeks ago.
Angered township residents are set to toyi-toyi again this week, following Mayor Vumile Lwana's failure to meet with them in person as promised two weeks ago.
Residents will today hear whether the municipality allows or rejects their notice for a public gathering on Thursday this week, depending on the mayor's availability to receive a memorandum personally from the residents.
The municipality was informed on Friday last week of the residents' intentions to embark on another protest march this coming Thursday, to deliver a memorandum of their grievances to the mayor at City Hall. "Noone else will receive our memorandum except the mayor," said Nosigqibo Soxujwa, the chairperson of the Women's Social Forum, who are leading the protest march together with UPM.
The latest protest march will follow the violence that occurred in Phaphamani Township's two weeks ago on February 10 where protesters clashed with police. The incident resulted in the arrest of four people, including three UPM leaders. UPM chairperson Ayanda Kota and two other UPM leaders (Nombulelo Yami, deputy chairperson, and Xola Mali, spokesperson) are prohibited to partake in marches as this is one of their bail conditions.
This being the case, Soxujwa will have to lead the residents should the march take place. There was some confusion last week as municipal manager Ntombi Baart said she had already met with a UPM delegation "as promised" on February 11, the day Kota and three other activists were released on bail.
In a media briefing on Monday last week, Baart told Grocott's Mail that she had met with eight residents who also belong to UPM. "I have since met with a delegation as I promised them on Friday morning," said Baart, "whereby [I informed the residents that] the Mayor said he's not prepared to meet with them [UPM] without a written submission [or request]."
In the attendance register of this meeting, a copy of which Grocott's has in its possession, it is recorded as: "Follow up meeting with UPM members". But Liziwe Gqotolo, a UPM member who was present in the meeting with Baart, said: "This was not a meeting, but a follow-up on the municipal manager's word that the mayor would meet with us in 48 hours."
Gqotolo said she and seven others had been at Baart's office on Friday as residents, to ascertain the dates and venue of the promised meeting with the mayor. She said the mayor had made promises to Phaphamani residents in a public meeting late last year that they would have electricity by the first of December 2010.
They then reported back to other residents on the mayor's insistence on a written submission. The residents, who had gathered near the train station after Kota and others were released on bail, “refused to write such a letter,” according to Gqotolo. “And so the residents took a decision that we would protest again so that we could see the mayor in person.”
