By Luvuyo Mjekula
Makhanda residents and their public servants engaged vigorously in a community imbizo at the BB Zondani Hall in Fingo Village on Tuesday.
Representatives from the police, justice, social development, home affairs, correctional services and justice and constitutional development departments, as well as municipal councillors, were present at the meeting.
The ‘Policing Accountability Engagement (Imbizo)’ also drew a large crowd of residents and civic organisations.
Before the residents took them to task over poor services, the officials went on an awareness drive, informing residents about the services their various departments provide.
A correctional services official talked about community corrections, giving details on inmates who successfully completed their community corrections programmes and how many went on to reoffend.
Meanwhile, a home affairs department’s representative gave statistics, including the number of uncollected IDs and a prosecutor detailed the court process from arrest to prosecution.
Makana ward councillor Ramie Xonxa also addressed the community members, especially concerns pertaining to poor service delivery. Vukani resident Melikhaya Dyongman had complained about the local ward councillor’s failure to deliver services to residents. Instead, Dyongman pointed out that the councillor had sought to open a liquor business without consulting the residents.
Makhanda police station commander, Col Mbulelo Pika also presented challenges faced by the community and the police, and called on community members to work with the police in fighting the scourge, including gender-based violence. He urged residents to report the police’s transgressions such as the misuse of state vehicles. Pika used the event to provide some statistics in terms of how police fight crime.
Community members had raised a myriad of issues they were dissatisfied with including high crime levels, lack of visibility, slow wheels of justice, repeat offending, poor communication, homelessness dark streets, water outages and lack of facilities.
Resident and Makana Citizens Front (MCF) leader, Lena May, pressed Pika on some of the police’s failure, citing the Joza police station as one public institution where members of the public were treated with disrespect.
Pika assured the residents that the police were doing the best they could, amid many other challenges that were out of their control. He said the police were performing at 90%.
The event came a week before the start of 16 Days of Activism for no violence against women and children.
The election of a new Community Policing Forum chairperson had to be postponed because certain procedures needed to be followed to ensure a free and fair election.
