Media: Protesters give ultimatum to mall management

November 06, 2009 Edition 2
THANDANANI MHLANGA – Cape Argus

A GROUP of Gugulethu residents resumed their protest against the township’s new mall this morning, saying that management had 10 days in which to respond to their grievances or they would boycott the centre and continue protesting.
Residents claim they were sidelined from jobs in favour of Khayelitsha residents.

Last Thursday police arrest-ed six protesters outside the mall and charged them with public violence, but later dropped the charges.

Residents alleged that corruption, bribery and nepotism had taken place during job allocation at the mall. The management and the Gugulethu Development Forum, which built the mall, have denied the claims.

Today the group’s spokesman, Mncedisi Twalo, said they would hand over a list of grievances and demand jobs.

He said half of the tenants were already on site, but only “plus-minus 5 percent” were from Gugulethu.

Zandile Zini said she’d applied for a job online and had submitted her CV but had still not been given a job despite previous work experience.

“We found our CVs in the bin. We don’t work but we spent our money on making those CVs,” she said.

Police and Metro Police officers were at the scene and escorted the protesters to the front of the mall where they handed their memorandum over to management.

Centre manager Azania Landiwe accepted the memorandum and said she would get back to them.

“We’ll give them these couple of days. If they don’t respond we will mobilise other communities so that they can see that we mean business,” said Twalo.