09/07/2025
Our sisters in Development ACC
Amadiba Crisis Committee 2025-07-09:
Intensive debate with the Amadiba community on the N2 project crisis, MEC of Transport, Mr Nqatha, tells SANRAL to have talks within 14 days
On Monday 7 July, an intense community meeting about the crisis for the N2 project took place in Jama village by the Mtentu mega bridge-build. It followed a 12 May community march that delivered a memorandum with 23 demands to SANRAL.
The face-to-face meeting ended with the MEC of Transport telling SANRAL to engage with the community. Mr Nqatha agreed it must take place within two weeks.
SANRAL’s written replies to the Amadiba Memorandum were only sent to the community on 19 June but have circulated in government departments since 30 May.
In the reply, SANRAL defend the corrupted Public Liaison Committees (PLC) dominated by business forums, deny wastewater damage reported with photo evidence to the Mbizana municipality and avoid the demand for an independent audit of project invoices that SANRAL must pay – to name a few “short comings” in the reply, signed by Regional Manager Mbulelo Peterson.
SANRAL’s replies to the memorandum swings between recommending calls to a “Hotline” number and demanding evidence. It indicates that SANRAL will investigate nothing.
- An independent audit of MECSA and its JV with CCCC would give proof of corruption, something the community is very aware of, both from internal sources and from subcontractors who have seen their invoices balloon when forwarded to SANRAL.
- The refusal to even acknowledge receipt of a report about wastewater contamination in Jama with photo evidence is an indication of corruption
- Even in the conflict over the Dangeni quarry, proof of corruption is now surfacing after MECSA approving the bid of the most “targeted SMME” business empire in Eastern Cape, which bid for the tender is double that of the bid from the company supported by locals and managed locally
- SANRAL’s own reply that copies of employment contract to workers is a “private matter” instead of a matter of South African Labour Law, is a proof of how SANRAL is corrupting the project when not imposing its own contract conditions on the main contractor.
A 26 June community meeting studied the reply point by point and then invited SANRAL’s Mr Peterson, the MEC of Transport and Security, Mr Nqatha and the Mayor of Mbizana municipality (WMMLM), Ms Mafumbatha, for 7 July. The purpose was to discuss SANRAL’s reply. No senior official from the municipality came. Instead, a group of councillors arrived. The municipality did not even acknowledge receipt of the invite. In the reply SANRAL argued that municipalities should facilitate SANRAL ‘s contact with communities according to “protocol”. It doesn’t work.
The day got a rough start. The politicians led by MEC Nqatha, Chair of the N2 project’s “Political Oversight Committee”, had decided to spend the day in a board room. A “Briefing Meeting” was starting at 9.30, to last 30 minutes, it said in an email. When seven community leaders entered, they were given a printed “Engagement” agenda lasting until 1.30.
The community was waiting from 10.00. A two hour long “Point of Order” debate started about the inevitable. The inevitable was: SANRAL and politicians going out to the people who invited them. Instead of sitting for four hours and then going out and telling people “What we have agreed”.
When the community representatives of course opposed that plan, they were “bad leaders”. That the Xolobeni mining project remains blocked, surprisingly came up, and Shell’s oil and gas project, which is in the Constitutional Court. A PLC member pointed at Nonhle Mbuthuma and Thwesha Silangwe: “You are not ANC members. You are mobilising against the ANC in this region", as if the N2 project is an ANC project. To point to problems and demand changes, is to be “anti-development”.
The sitting became a propaganda meeting before it had to stop and our MEC Nqatha had to agree to meet the community: “OK, the meeting with all people will go over the cliff. If that is what you want, let’s go”.
The meeting was intense, as expected. But the host of the meeting, which was the inviting community, of course made sure that nothing went over the cliff.
DYSFUNCTIONAL PUBLIC LIAISON COMMITTEE
The PLC members were standing behind the politicians and SANRAL, but did not want to step forward, say who they are and what they represent. They had never called the community to one meeting. That the PLC members must be replaced and elected by the community was shown in broad daylight.
Nonhle Mbuthuma commented: “The PLCs are the engine of the project. If the engine of a car is broken, the car cannot move.” SANRAL only made one concession during the PLC debate, that the youth is not represented. “Veterans” were claimed to be represented, which is not in SANRAL’s regulations. And how are general workers recruited?!
It is a main crisis point in the N2 project that SANRAL has appointed PLC members from mushrooming business forums and structures no one ever heard of. The PLC for the Mtentu bridge and the road building “packages” in Amadiba are dysfunctional and corrupt. But SANRAL replied to the memorandum that the community must raise all issues with the PLC.
SANRAL’s District Manager Nwabisa Gxumisa demanded “evidence” that PLC members are selling jobs for “R20,000 or a cow” and of extortion.
ACC will send a standard affidavit for court purposes from Mzansi Communication to SANRAL and MEC Nqatha. It is a transcript of one of the extortion messages from a PLC member to community leader Thwesha Silangwe. The man argues that “R15,000” isn’t much. The same man visited Khanyayo Komhkulu on 12 June saying: “There is a person who still is going to lie on the ground. Nobody is going to stop SANRAL”, boasting “If we want to get rid of someone, we will get rid of that person”.
THE DESTRUCTION OF COMMUNITY FRESH WATER
Before the PLC debate, the piping of wastewater out from the CCCC compound in Jama was one of the issues. Nonhle Mbuthuma summarised a short reply to SANRAL from the leadership group. Our MEC Nqatha objected that the water issue wasn’t in the memorandum. The meeting told him that the water issue of course is there. It has been reported with photo evidence to the municipality without getting a reply.
The report is also with the Department of Environment, including the water disaster in Khanyayo. We speak of a water disaster: The municipality does not provide water to rural areas. Communities are dependent on our fresh water we have used since time immemorial.
The N2 project destroyed the fresh water supply in Khanyayo when the road started to be built between Msikaba and Mtentu. It is built over springs and wetlands. Raw sewage is leaking out from the worker accommodation compound into the yard of the Khanyayo Clinic. The clinic is about to close because of this. This has been known in Amadiba since 4 June when three leaders were invited to a community meeting.
The project is running without regards to affected communities and their life environment. There is no control or corrections whatsoever. One part of the N2 project crisis is that the Environmental Authorisation has become a joke.
ENGAGE WITHIN 14 DAYS
SANRAL, and politicians would not budge in the PLC debate. MEC Nqatha then took the correct decision. SANRAL and the WMMLM must “sit at the table” with the community and discuss the project. MEC Nqatha agreed that it must happen within 14 days.
The discussion with SANRAL about moving the N2 from the coast to the centre of Amadiba between Mtentu and Mtamvuna bridges will therefore also be up in the engagement, as the Amadiba Memorandum demands. The proposal to amend the alignment in Amadiba came very far in 2023. SANRAL left the discussions in March 2023 without explanation.
At the meeting with both sides, Nonhle described the struggle to deal with the N2 project crisis as a Joint Venture between the ACC and all others in Amadiba: “And there is nothing wrong with a Joint Venture”. It was met with laughter.
When SANRAL and the politicians left, the community meeting mandated ACC and its technical team to give a point-by-point answer to SANRAL’s reply. The joint 12 May Amadiba Memorandum, SANRAL's replies and ACC answering will be out shortly, in one document.
We want the project to go well. The new N2 can be a great asset, both to the Eastern Cape and to the local communications. But it must not compromise the future of Amadiba, and compromise a national and international asset, which is the Wild Coast.
Amadiba Crisis Committee
For those who have not seen the 12 May memorandum, please find it a few posts further down.
Photo: Jama meeting on 7 July.
