Under-fire King Sabata Dalindyebo municipal bosses have admitted that 50% of the buildings in Mthatha were not compliant with health and safety regulations and standards. And despite several buildings going up in smoke under mysterious circumstances since 2021, the municipality has also admitted it does not have a bylaw on fire prevention.
Mthatha residents have demanded that the police top brass abandon their blue-light convoys and walk the streets of their crime-plagued town.Speaking to police minister Bheki Cele and national police commissioner General Fannie Masemola, who visited the area on Wednesday, they said: “Leave your blue lights, VIP security and walk the streets. Drugs are being sold openly in some streets in town in broad daylight.“Mthatha is no longer safe.”
The concerns I raise below were shared with me at Nkosi Mzolisi Diliza’s thanks-giving ceremony, in December 2022, who is also a businessman, where many prominent Eastern Cape citizens were present, including Professor Nkuhlu, Advocate Lusu, Nkosi Phathekile Holomisa, Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, businessman Sabelo Macingwane and many others. We informally chatted about the deterioration of the Eastern Cape, especially in the villages and rural towns where infrastructure is collapsing, and there seems to be no coordinated programme of service delivery. To compound matters, it is the meagre infrastructure that exist that people take out their frustrations upon, and destroy, when they are protesting.