Msimanga helps with clean-up after #StateCapture protests

Share this article: Share Tweet Share Share Share Email Share

Pretoria - The Tshwane municipality will be reviewing by-laws regarding protests in the city after “state capture” protesters left a trail of destruction, running into millions of rands, Mayor Solly Msimanga said on Thursday. “We’re all for the people’s right to demonstrate and march for whatever cause, but what we cannot tolerate is the trashing of the city and the destruction of property. Shops have been broken into and looted. That is nothing else but criminality,” Msimanga told reporters as he led a massive clean-up campaign in the wake of Wednesday’s protests. “This defeats the purpose of what we’re trying to do. We are trying to build a capital city which attracts investments, that business can thrive and create employment for our people. This is working against that and we cannot allow it to continue.” Msimanga said Tshwane would be formulating a policy “to hold people to account” for the actions of their supporters during mass gatherings and protests. “If you are an organiser of a march and things like this end up happening, those people will be held personally responsible for whatever happens,” said Msimanga.

“People can march all they want but then let it be peaceful marches. At the end of the day, the violence defeats the same process of what the march was about. All that people will remember afterwards is the violence and destruction that followed the marches, not the purpose of the marches.”

Msimanga said four people were arrested on Wednesday after they “trashed a vehicle” in the city centre. The Tshwane Metro Police was going through security footage in a bid to identify some of the culprits.

On Thursday morning, Msimanga and numerous volunteers were joined by employees of property management company City Property on a clean up campaign in the city centre.

Streets were heavily littered and hundreds of shops across the city had had their giant glass windows and walls shattered. Some had been looted. Shop employees were already cleaning up their work premises.

At the Spitz shop, which had been extensively vandalised, Msimanga apologised on behalf of his municipality to shop manager Joe Mdazuka.

“People have a democratic right to protest, but this we cannot allow. This is employment for our people. If we allow this to continue, tomorrow it will be another shop and at the end business will close and people lose jobs. In this economic climate we cannot afford that,” said Msimanga.

“I want to apologise on behalf on behalf of the city. I’m here to clean up as much as we can so that we bring some sense of normality back into the city. We hope that this does not deter investors in any way.”

City Property spokesperson Lize Nel said around 20 of their buildings in the city centre had been vandalised as well during the protests.

“The concern for us is obviously the shops that were damaged on the buildings that we manage. We had to place extra securing guards at those shops overnight. That is very negative for a march that was largely peaceful. It’s unfortunate that buildings got damaged,” she said.

Nel said generally security at their Pretoria CBD buildings was high because “that is the reason people choose to stay with us”.

Members of the Tshwane Metro Police also joined the clean up initiatives, filling up bags of litter at the Church Square where thousands of Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) supporters had congregated on Tuesday and Wednesday.