Lwandle police have opened a public violence case following unrest in Nomzamo on Friday 25 March.
Scores of unhappy people from Nomzamo and surrounding areas picketed in front of the new shopping centre, demanding employment of locals.
Picketing residents, armed with placards, accused a major retailer of ignoring their demands for employment.
Their anger boiled over, as they took to the streets burning tyres and rubble on the road.
They also accused the store of being “arrogant and racist” when dealing with the issue of employment among locals.
A project steering committee claimed it had urged the shops to allow members to screen and verify candidates so locals can benefit.
Committee member Jackson Mcinezeleli said they wanted to monitor and ensure locals benefit from development.
“People are not happy at all. A lot of shops listened to our demands and they gave a chance to screen and verify those they wanted to employ.” He said the community was not happy at all with the retailer’s “arrogance”.
Resident Zoleka Toni accused the retailer of excluding the community, something that left the residents “unhappy and angry”.
“To see how our people love this shop and how it has dealt with this community,” she said. “We have had meetings with them, where we shared our demands, but I can only describe them as racist.”
Toni said when people dropped their CVs in a box at the centre, they did so in the hopes that the majority of the locals would benefit.
“There was a high number of people that applied, because there’s high number of unemployment in this area,” she said. “We told them we don’t mind if management comes from elsewhere, but the staff must come from our community and they bluntly said they won’t do that.”
Toni also accused the retailer of refusing to consider local people to work as security. “We want our people that have security companies to grow as well,” she said. “Those people that are already established can operate somewhere else, but this shop didn’t want to hear any of that.”
Lwandle Police Station spokesperson Sgt Mthokozisi Gama said local police had not made any arrests.
