Following the violence and looting that has been witnessed in the KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng provinces, the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature has appealed to Eastern Cape residents to ignore those wanting them to be involved in destruction of private properties, community and business infrastructure.
This follows messages doing rounds mobilising people to support planned riots and destruction of property under the guise of objecting to the Corvid-19 Lockdown and arrest of former President Jacob Zuma last week.
Following the spread of violence from Kwazulu-Natal into Gauteng Province this week, Presiding Officers urge residents to rejects any efforts or form of enticement to embark on destructive riots.
“We are in the centre of a raging storm of Covid-19 storm, and we are appealing to people not to fall prey to the unscrupulous, rogue advances that seek to destroy lives and livelihoods of the people in the province,” said Speaker of the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature, MPL Helen Sauls-August.
She urges people to ensure that there are no disruptions of services across the province, particularly during this time when government is currently rolling out its vaccination programme, thus any form of involvement in the destruction of property and infrastructure will endanger people’s lives of people, especially those who are in health facilities and whose medication needs to be transported to health facilities to be administered.
Moreover, “Let us not allow rogue elements to involve us into their unlawful rogue attempts of undermining the rule of Law, ” Helen Sauls-August said.
She added that people aggrieved by lack of government services are encouraged to liaise with Parliamentary Constituencies spread out across the province or contact their Public Representatives for peaceful resolution to their problems.
She urged people to continue complying with precautionary guidelines to prevent spread of Corvid-19 infections.