Swellendam mayor Francois Du Rand says the cost of damage to its municipal building which was torched during violent protests amounts to an estimated R25 million.

Angry demonstrators took to the streets yesterday in protest against a newly-implemented council policy requiring indigent households to apply for subsidised services, such as water and electricity. The protest led to a municipal building being gutted, shops being vandalised and looted, with over 100 suspects arrested.

“The estimation is about R25 million. It’s not a large building, like in the City (of Cape Town), but this is our main office which has now been gutted. There is no office space that we can use there anymore. We are setting up offices at some of the businesses here. They offered some space to us for free. We are also getting support from the Western Cape Government to set up payment offices, because all our equipment has been damaged. Luckily our servers were still okay, so we moved our servers. Other municipalities are helping by hosting our servers.”

Du Rand says more meetings will be held throughout the court of the day to help resolve the current impasse with residents in the predominantly quiet Overberg town.

MEETINGS TO ADDRESS THE CONCERNS OF DISGRUNTLED RESIDENTS

“I can’t speak for the entire council, but yes, we are looking at ways in which we can accommodate residents within the current policy to assist people in registering (for the subsidized services). It will help us with our municipal planning.

He adds calm has largely been restored in the area except for a small group of protestors who are intimidating some residents from getting to their places of employment.

“There was still criminality last night. People say it’s about the 15-killowatts of electricity they don’t get anymore, because they didn’t apply. People were looting spaza shops throughout the night. There’s still a group trying to prevent people from coming to work.”