Violent KZN protests cause havoc with traffic

A groundswell of fury over service delivery forced the closure of parts of the N2 and the R102 between Groutville and Stanger again on Tuesday night.

The protests have severely disrupted traffic as demonstrators stoned cars and blockaded roads.

On Monday night two people were shot and wounded by a motorist who fired off a salvo of shots into a crowd of people who had surrounded his vehicle as he travelled on the barricaded R102.

A number of riot police units from across the province have been deployed to contain the situation. KwaDukuza Municipality on Tuesday commented on the “violent and criminal protests”.

“Reports have suggested that these protests were fuelled by power outages linked to the municipality’s stance to curb costs‚ with overtime being the main reason. We therefore wish to sincerely apologise for the inconvenience the outages have caused to all the communities‚ households and businesses‚” it said in a statement.

“It is very unfortunate that these protests have caused harm to properties and individuals. We wish to put it on record that the municipality’s electrical engineering business unit is hard at work to fix all issues currently barring some households from accessing electricity.”

The municipality said teams have been deployed to all the affected areas‚ including Mathenjwa‚ Ntshawini‚ Groutville‚ Shakaville and Thembeni‚ to restore power.

“Engagements with the electrical engineering business unit staff on this particular issue are ongoing and are expected to be brought to finality in no less than seven working days.”