Msunduzi Municipality Mayor Mzimkhulu Thebolla.
Msunduzi Municipality Mayor Mzimkhulu Thebolla is outraged by the state and the lawlessness he has witnessed in parts of the city, describing the situation as the equivalent of a “banana republic”.
Thebolla and other council members were on a by-law enforcement drive on Tuesday morning in the CBD and said what they witnessed was shocking.
They were visiting an area called “Somalia” in the CBD near West Street and Pine Street where the majority of the population is foreign nationals.
Among the things that shocked Thebolla was finding shacks inside the CBD.
Following the visit, Thebolla said what he discovered was intolerable and the municipality will clamp down on the lawlessness.
“We want to restore law and order in the city. Our by-laws must be adhered to and implemented fully. We have realised that this is one of the areas that has serious challenges, our by-laws are disregarded as though they do not exist.
“The things we are finding here are shocking. When you speak of a ‘banana republic’, I had never seen it before but we found it in this area,” he said.
“We found shacks here, shacks worse than what you would find in any informal settlement, and we found the shacks in the CBD.
“People have built with total disregard of our by-laws. We have laws in Pietermaritzburg, and we are going to be implementing that, he warned.
Thebolla said they have already closed several illegal businesses, adding that the City will continue to clamp down on illegality across the metro.
“We want Msunduzi to be the city of choice, second to none,” said the mayor.
Speaker of the municipality, Eunice Majola, said what they found in the area was shocking.
“We are going to do everything in our power to demolish this. What we found you’d be shocked to find (kidnapped) kids locked up here, drugs, and we have seen a lot. We are not going to rest until we correct everything that is here,” she said.
The Mercury
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