Student rioters to pay for damage
Elangeni TVET College students will have to pay for repairs to the institution’s property, which was destroyed during protests.
|||Durban - Students of the Elangeni TVET College will have to pay for repairs to the institution’s property, which was destroyed during recent violent protests.
The decision was taken by the council of the college.
Council chairman Lindelani Shezi said the students would have to pay from their own pockets after using petrol bombs, lighting fires and throwing stones to destroy property on the college’s eight campuses including Pinetown, KwaMashu, Qadi (Botha’s Hill) and Mpumalanga.
“Liability will also be assumed for other costs incurred including legal, security and learning and teaching costs. The law will take its course,” he said.
Shezi said the council believed not all the students were willing to participate in the violent strikes, but there was a group that instigated and forced the students to take part.
The group was also believed to have given the students money to buy dangerous items used during the protests.
“They must refuse to be used by the selfish minority that is advancing its own narrow agenda through innocent students. We also note the involvement of the third hand in this protest which has been funding students with money to buy petrol used in the manufacturing of petrol bombs,” he said.
Shezi said the college had obtained a court interdict against illegal protests. “There is nothing wrong with people protesting and we respect that, but what is a problem is what has become a trend that the most acceptable form of protesting must be associated with violence and destruction of property.
“And there is nothing that has happened to curb this. Currently there is no deterrence. Wherever it is happening people are threatened with police and if police do not arrest them nothing happens,” he said.
Shezi said when people protested and chose to destroy property, a legal mechanism had to be put in place for them to pay up for the property they had destroyed.
“We are in the process of assessing the value of the damage that has happened. The damage that the students have done is going to be put to them collectively and our lawyers are working on it to look at what legal instruments are going to be used.”
Shezi said staff had also held a protest, but a legal one. However, it had turned violent.
He said they were consulting their lawyers on how to approach the case against the staff who were members of the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union.
“They vandalised the fence and broke doors forcing entry into an exam venue to disturb students,” he said.
The college’s SRC president, Sanele Ndaba, could not be reached for comment yesterday.
sphelele.ngubane@inl.co.za
The Mercury