March to Kouga Municipal Offices

This email is to remind Jeffreys Bay and Kouga residents about the service delivery protest march taking place on Wednesday morning, 12th September 2012 starting at 9.30am in the vacant parking area in front of the Tampa Bay Spur.

I would like to give everyone an update on what has been happening in the last few days - which I hope will also make people more at ease and happy to join us as a community in standing up for service delivery and transparency in our area.

I have meticulously followed the Regulation of Gatherings Act (205 of 1993) in organizing this march. The Kouga Municipality has however not followed the Act and instead has tried to undermine our rights given under the law with regard to assembly and free expression. Sadly this problem is not unique to Kouga.

At this point the municipality has taken a decision to restrict our right to peacefully assemble on the open air space inside the gates in front of the municipal headquarters. In my view this restriction is  imposed by a previous generation of municipal policy makers (and desired by a current collection of nefarious figures trying to control Kouga) due to the fact that it forces a segregation of protesters from the political process. I believe that by peacefully assembling in our public space we are affirming that the municipality is accountable to us as the people of Kouga. By locking the gates and keeping the residents out of the public space the politicians and bureaucrats reinforce their power and trample over the rights of residents. For this reason I have expended considerable energy - possibly at the expense of more ably marketing the gathering or preparing banners and posters and so on - towards ensuring that the Regulation of Gatherings Act be applied properly and that Kouga not override the law.

Currently an urgent application has been laid before the duty judge of the High Court and I anticipate that we will hear more about the application tomorrow morning.  The route of the march has been extensively discussed and planned as an alternative with the SAPS. While there is great importance in this application and the law prescribes that it be addressed urgently it is possible that other matters on a busy court schedule will make it impossible for the matter to be finalized before the end of our march.

In the event that the High Court Order is not forthcoming I ask that everybody observe the restriction imposed unlawfully by an official

from Kouga and that we keep to the alternate route arranged with the SAPS and assemble outside the gates. More importantly, if we are able to enforce the law (either through a Court Order, or a municipality decision to follow the Act), we must peacefully assemble within the courtyard of the municipality.

Tomorrow morning provides an opportunity for Kouga residents to join together to demonstrate our community spirit and

opposition to poor-governance. I can report that a great deal of media coverage has been forthcoming for this gathering.

Paul Hjul

Chairman, Jeffreys Bay Residents Association

071 956 5953