WHY IS WESTVILLE CAMPUS BURNING MINISTER NZIMANDE?

Congress of the People deplores university students becoming destructive mobsters. In a country with a constitution as good as ours, students should use constructive and peaceful means to find solutions to their problems, whatever they are. For university students to engage “in rolling battles” with security personnel and the police is totally unwarranted in a democracy where the right to protest is constitutionally guaranteed.

The police bear no responsibility for their grievances. Therefore, it is wrong of protesting students to pelt police with stones and bottles and blockade the road with burning tyres. COPE demands that the ruling party puts in place swift mediation processes. When student protesters and university authorities cannot find one another, the mediation process can kick in.

Minister Blade Nzimande seems so out of touch with what is going on in our tertiary institutions. If students are frustrated, he should engage them proactively and energetically. Politicians should earn their salaries rather than leaving it to the police to quell violent protests. He should ask the students where the money will come from to replace what they have destroyed? He should ask them why they failed to approach his office before resorting to arson and violence. The country waits to hear from him.

Students causing malicious damage to property and engaging in public violence must be prosecuted. With money fast running out, the country cannot afford to use its diminished resources to restore what is being damaged. Seeking to burn and destroy the administration block is a mindless act of vandalism. It is so retrogressive. University students should show greater intelligence and maturity. We can have no sympathy and no tolerance for mobsters on our campuses.

The fight for resources is plaguing South Africa. Years of abuse under the Zuma administration has emptied the National Treasury. The ruling party has created the false impression that money is readily available if strong arm tactics are resorted to.

President Zuma must substantially reduce the size of government and make clear to the country that the national treasury is indeed empty. He must take the lead in genuine belt tightening if the nation is to believe him.

Issued by Dennis Bloem, Cope spokesperson, 14 September 2015