Protesters furious with Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality for failing to clean up after devastating storm

Protesters in Kariega wear EarthLife Africa T-shirts saying “Just Transition” Photo: Thamsanqa Mbovane

Over 100 protesters marched to Kariega Town Hall on Thursday. They expressed their fury that the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has not sufficiently addressed the damage of the 1 June storm. They demanded that senior municipality officials come out of their offices and listen to them.

Most of the protesters are members of the Eastern Cape Combined Environmental Forum.

They sang and blew whistles while marching from Mel Brooks Avenue to the town hall. The protesters complained that rivers were still dirty and bridges remain broken since the storm. Some expressed grief.

“My daughter drowned to death on 1 June storm and I am still paying a funeral parlour,” shouted Nonyameko Matshele. “Come out! Come out!” she shouted. But no municipal official came to address the crowd.

The protesters wore T-shirts with Earthlife Africa’s logo and the words ‘Just Transition’. Just Transition is a framework developed and supported by unions across the planet that calls for “security for the livelihoods of workers and their communities in the transition to a low-carbon economy”.

Some of the placards said: “Justice for Kariega flood victims” and “We want our water.”

They sang “Amabhul’amnyama andenzi wari” (Black boers make me worried) and “Asinal’ valo” (We are not scared) as shoppers on busy Market Street watched.

Some came from afar to express solidarity. Phenius Nkatshuka, from the National Association of Fishermen, who is based in Jeffreys Bay, addressed the crowd.

“Residents stay without water and electricity in Kariega week after week, while the municipality is supplying water to big industrial companies,” he said. “We are in big trouble as communities. The municipality is watching each and every cent we make out of the sea and taxes us, yet they don’t even clean the sea. We will protest until we die.”

Many of the speakers blamed climate change for the 1 June storm.

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