A group of elderly Kariega residents have been forced to become their own security force.
Arming themselves with tasers, sjamboks and makeshift barricades, they are standing guard at the Nick Claassen municipal retirement cottages — not out of bravery, but desperation.
Though their courage is commendable, no senior citizen should be forced to live this way.
They are not vigilantes by choice. They are pensioners, mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers.
Yet when a vandalised gate remains broken for more than a year, and it falls to pensioners — not officials — to patch a hole in the boundary wall, it signals a profound failure of responsibility.
They pay rent. That is what makes it worse.
From copper pipes being ripped off the walls, to a TV being stolen and a ring being bitten off a resident’s finger, the situation has become worse since the complex’s gate stopped working.
Ward 48 councillor Franay van de Linde said she had repeatedly taken up the issues with the municipality.
But the response was that the gate motor had been vandalised and the contract for the repair work needed to put it out to tender.
But this is more than being about a broken gate.
It is another damning indictment on the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality.
No-one should be forced to choose between locking themselves in their homes or preparing to fight off intruders with a knife or a crutch.
But in recent weeks, one elderly woman’s cottage was stripped of copper pipes for the third time, and she is unable to afford the cost of replacing them on her grant.
She lives behind closed doors and relies on her dog’s barking to alert her to any potential threats.
Fearful for her safety, she avoids going outdoors and pleads for basic security measures to be restored.
The solution is simple. Fix the gate.
Instead, we have a situation that is just pure neglect. It needs to end.
The Herald
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