{"id":169379,"date":"2020-10-20T10:18:08","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T08:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/henley-dam-community-protest-over-lack-water\/"},"modified":"2020-10-20T10:18:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-20T08:18:08","slug":"henley-dam-community-protest-over-lack-of-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/henley-dam-community-protest-over-lack-of-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Henley Dam community protest over lack of water"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Nompendulo%20Ngubane\/henley_dam.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Photo of burning debris on a road\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/henley-dam-community-protest-over-lack-of-water.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">About 50 residents from Mbizane and Henley protested on Monday by blocking roads with burning tree branches and debris. Photo: Nompendulo Ngubane<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Residents of Mbizane and Henley Dam blocked roads in protests on Monday and last week Friday.<\/li>\n<li>Residents are demanding a community hall, the repair of a road, and a dependable water supply.<\/li>\n<li>Msunduzi municipality says all the issues are busy being addressed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p>\u201cWe decided that we come here and close the road that is busy so that the world can see our frustrations,\u201d said Themba Mhlongo, a resident of Henley Dam, Pietermaritzburg.<\/p>\n<p>About 50 residents from Mbizane and Henley protested on Monday by blocking roads with burning tree branches and debris. Last week Friday, community members also blocked the road.<\/p>\n<p>Their main demands are to have the D2344 road fixed, a community hall for the area, and a regular water supply.<\/p>\n<p>Mhlongo said their demands have been ignored by successive ward councillors.<\/p>\n<p>Protesters threw bottles at the police. The police used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the protesters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are tired of holding community meetings outside or under the trees because we don\u2019t have a community hall,\u201d said Mhlongo. \u201cWe have been suffering for long and it\u2019s taking forever \u2026 Mbizane is an old area but there is no community hall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A resident who gave the name Ntombela and has lived in Mbizane for over ten years, said, \u201cWe feel that the issue of the road has taken more than it should. Taxis leave us not even half the way to our homes. There is a part of the road that has been eroded.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A ward committee member, who only gave the name Gatsheni, said, \u201cWe are able to survive using old springs to have water. It\u2019s been four years and more \u2026 Water tankers don\u2019t come every day \u2026 We don\u2019t know their schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Councillor Nathi Mbanjwa for ward 5 in the Vulindlela area, Msunduzi municipality, said that the 4km D2344 road would be attended to as after the municipality finished another 2km road project in the ward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can\u2019t leave that project incomplete and commit to another without finishing the one we are busy with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said water was a problem for the entire area. He blamed population growth. Mbanjwa said the municipality rotated its water tankers, delivering to various settlements.<\/p>\n<p>He said funding for a community hall had been received from the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs.<\/p>\n<p>Msunduzi municipality spokesperson Thobeka Mafumbatha said, \u201cThe building of a community hall will start after the design phase has been completed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sergeant Sifiso Gwala from Plessislaer police station said a case of public violence was opened; no one was arrested.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article-copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2020 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/henley-dam-community-protest-over-lack-of-water.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About 50 residents from Mbizane and Henley protested on Monday by blocking roads with burning tree branches and debris. Photo: Nompendulo Ngubane Residents of Mbizane and Henley Dam blocked roads in protests on Monday and last week Friday. Residents are demanding a community hall, the repair of a road, and a dependable water supply. Msunduzi [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-169379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/henley-dam-community-protest-over-lack-of-water.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}