Residents march in droves in protest against mayor despite disinformation campaign on social media

Despite a flurry of fake messages claiming that their march had been cancelled, residents from Makhanda came out in their droves and braved the rain and the potholes to join what organisers said was just the first day in their campaign to remove the municipality’s mayor. 

Led by the town’s clergy holding hands, hundreds of residents marched to the town to hand over a memorandum to the Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs’ chief of staff Dr Masilo Mokoena. 

Organisers were out from early morning with bakkies and loudspeakers to refute an overnight message that appeared on social media claiming that the march had been cancelled.

Students from Rhodes University, led by the Student Representative Council, also joined in.

Mayor Yandiswa Vara did not meet with the protestors.

Since last night communities had received several fake messages on social media that the march had been cancelled. The municipality also, overnight, organised two meetings, one for small businesses and one for the community works programme, to hand out work at the same time as the march.

The municipality was asked about the timing of these hastily organised meetings, but has not yet responded.

Read more: Mayor insists they will solve Makhanda’s many problems as hundreds gear up to demand her removal

The memorandum demands that the mayor be removed, among other issues. Mokoena said he would make time to listen to all the problems in town, and they immediately met with the representatives of the community and the Rhodes Student Representative Council afterward.

“The bishop said he wanted 30 minutes,” Mokoena said, “but I think this might take longer. This memorandum is in good hands. We will work closely with you,” he said. 

“We want the municipality to remember that they are working with our tax money,” said one of the organisers of the march, Archbishop Nkosinathi Ngesi. He added that if anybody ran a business like the municipality was run, it would fail. 

He also reminded the community that a former manager in the municipality, Jeff Budaza, who was well known in the community for his zero tolerance stance on corruption — was assassinated in 2022 when he spoke the truth of what was happening there.

“They will try to kill me too,” he said. “If I am killed you must know it is them. But they must go.” He said that in their discussions with the national ministry they would also ask for the removal of the municipal manager, Pumelelo Kate. 

“This is an uncaring local government,” he said. “They must go… We stand for the truth. We have lost confidence in the leadership.”

Read more: Makhanda on its knees as water and sewage services all but collapse amid broken equipment crisis

Apart from protesting against debilitating and ongoing water issues in town, enormous potholes and frequent electricity problems, Ngesi said they also wanted the traffic department to be reopened in Makhanda. Due to decades of neglect the traffic department’s offices were condemned by the Department of Labour, and now people had to travel to Port Alfred to renew or get their drivers’ licences.

The march was triggered by the latest of many extreme water outages in the town, but Ngesi said it was also about the irresponsible way the municipality was spending money and keeping the local government accountable. 

The community was also campaigning for the safe return of a specialist engineer, Reynhardt Britnell, who was appointed to sort out the water problems of the town but left after he received threats to not attend a meeting with the National Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs to update them on the state of the town’s water system. DM