Rather than let police tear down his shack and remove him from his property, Thulani Nelani, 41, locked himself inside and set his house on fire insisting he would rather die than be taken from the land his ancestors called home for more than 100 years.
With its busiest tourism season just a month away, water-scarce Port Alfred’s plight just got a little more desperate this week after the Ndlambe municipality failed in its high court bid to force a contractor to resume water production at its vital desalination plant Quality Filtration Systems in September stopped all work on the “emergency” reverse osmosis system which has been billed as an important part of the solution to crippling water shortages in the popular seaside hamlet.
Six months after Agri Eastern Cape obtained a court order for the municipality to enforce the bylaws around the breeding of dogs, their fears that sparked the legal action were realised when a man was mauled to death in Kenton-on-Sea.
The Hawks have seized procurement documents from the Ndlambe municipality in connection with a desalination project and suspected corrupt tenders worth R20m.