Mayor acts after classrooms torched during service delivery protest

Durban mayor Zandile Gumede has delegated a team to meet with residents from an informal settlement who set fire to a school and blockaded roads.

Residents of Banana City‚ the informal settlement on Varsity Drive‚ in Reservoir Hills‚ were protesting after their requests for housing went unanswered. They demanded that Gumede address them.

On Sunday night two classrooms at Hillview Primary School on Varsity Drive in Reservoir Hills were torched‚ forcing the school to be closed on Monday.

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On Monday morning several roads around the area were closed as informal dwellers burned rubble and threw stones.

"Books were destroyed. The classes which were burnt were renovated in 2014‚" said a source at the school.

Mayoral spokesman‚ Mthunzi Gumede‚ said the mayor was out of the country on council business.

"She has delegated a team to urgently meet the community and she will be able to respond swiftly‚ once advised by the team. The mayor has spent the past few days engaging communities around Ethekwini Municipality on her proposed budget plans for our city which will be tabled at the full council later this month. The budget is going to radically transform the lives of our people which includes the delivery of houses‚ water and electricity in line with 2016 local government manifesto‚" said Gumede.

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Jabulo Motsotsi‚ a resident of Banana City‚ said the community are demanding to meet with the mayor to address their call for housing.

"We have been promised housing since 2010. People keep getting bluffed that houses will be built within 10 months but nothing happens. There were only two toilets built for 3‚000 people. Politicians make promises for our vote but don't deliver. People are sick and tired.

"The councillor also says he is afraid of meeting the community because he feels he will be killed. Yet when he comes to visit his friends here then he is not afraid. We want the mayor to meet us and let us know when will we be getting houses‚" said Motsotsi.

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He said they were angry about the burning at the school.

"We don't know who was responsible for that. Our children attend that school so we can't understand why someone would do that‚" he said.

- TMG Digital/TimesLIVE