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4 000 left empty-handed
07/07/2004 22:51  - (SA)  


A large crowd barricaded the entrance to Diepsloot for a third consecutive day. (Halden Krog, Beeld)
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  • Simon Nare

    Johannesburg - As Diepsloot protesters continued toyi-toying on Wednesday, pensioners, disabled people and kids on welfare face hunger.

    Because of the violence in the area and the burning of municipal offices, the Gauteng social welfare department has postponed paying all welfare grants.

    Department spokesperson Sam Muofhe says 4 000 people will not get their money.

    Muofhe said they would not be paid before July 21 and 22. Even then, it would depend on whether the situation was back to normal.

    "We feel sorry for our aged and other beneficiaries because this money that they receive pays for their essential goods like food.

    "But the situation is beyond our control," he said.

    He urged the needy to visit offices in neighbouring areas to see if they could be helped.

    Suggestions that people be taken by bus to other pay points would not work because the buses might be attacked as well, he said.

    Partly for their own safety

    Diepsloot, meanwhile, was on Wednesday declared an official crime area which means that any journalists caught there will be arrested.

    This, police said, was partly for the safety of journalists and partly to help calm the situation down.

    There would be a place for reporters on the outskirts of Diepsloot, cops said.

    This came after the stoning of reporters in a marked Press car.

    And, as protesters continued with their confrontations with the cops on Wednesday, a few pensioners and others began arriving at the locked and barred Diepsloot pay-out points.

    When a Daily Sun team visited the pay-point at Zone 7, gloomy mothers with babies on their backs as well as pensioners had camped by the gate hoping to get their money.

    Can't pay monthly school fees

    They felt slapped in the face by their rioting comrades.

    "I use my child's grant of R170 to pay his school fees which are R120 a month.

    "I will not be able to pay this month. I feel aggrieved because I am not employed," Johannah Thobane said.

    "The protesters are threatening to continue for a month. My question is: what will the department do then? What excuse are they gonna give next time," she asked.

    Pensioner Mabungo Johannes Matshibuka used his last money to take a taxi from Craighall, where he now stays, to Diepsloot where he gets his money.

    He hung around the locked gates trying to beg a taxi fare home.

    "I don't know what I am going to do this month. What are my grandchildren going to eat?

    I understand why these guys are toyi-toying, but this is going to affect me greatly. This is very upsetting," he complained.

    Edited by Elmarie Jack


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