IN A DISPLAY of unity, residents, business leaders, and members of the Metro Police joined forces on Saturday to reclaim the historical Albert Park in Durban, which has repeatedly found itself in the clutches of neglect and the growing whoonga crisis.
A resident who lives near the once-esteemed Albert Park, which is now rundown, lauded the joint effort to restore the park to its former glory.
Thabile Zwane said: “I am pleading with everyone that we try to maintain this area because our kids can’t even play at the park due to crime there, which was once a go-to place for people wanting to get fresh air.”
Zwane said the drug addicts who have hijacked Albert Park brought with them a reign of terror and ever-surging crime rate in the area.
“Our area is crime-infested. One is even scared to walk around at night because you may be mugged or killed. This is not what I signed up for when I bought property here 15 years ago,” said Zwane.
Another resident, Mohammed Khan, said: “Our collective efforts will not be in vain. We will fight to rescue our beloved park from the clutches of drug addicts.”
Khan also owns a business near his property, which he shares with his family.
“When we arrived here in 2001, the place was good. The harbour is very close to us, and we enjoyed walking to the harbour with my family. But I can’t say that now. This area was once one of the most sought-after places of leisure in the 1990s to early 2000s. But it has become shadow of its former self,” said Khan.
He said he had tried several times unsuccessfully to sell his property as its value drastically dipped due to the high crime rate.
“I think if we come together and work towards eradicating the issue of crime and homeless people, there is a possibility the property values will increase again. But as things stand, we are doomed,” stated Khan.
A business owner, who did not want to be named, fearing victimisation, said the root cause of the Albert Park dilapidation was drug dealers.
“If we want to deal with the issue once and for all, we must work with the police and hunt down the drug dealers who sell drugs to those who have run away from their homes to live in Albert Park and other locations in Durban.”
He added: “Without us doing this, we will never solve this matter. How many times have these people been removed from Albert Park, and they made their way back to the area again? Many times.”
He also likened the plight of Albert Park to that of Point near the South Beach.
“If you remember well, Point was the place to go to in its heydays. But now, people with money are scared to go there because of crime, which in many instances is caused by drugs. We need to nip the issue of drugs in the bud if we are to win this battle.”
The eThekwini Municipality has also increased security in the area, deploying more metro police to the crime-riddled precinct.
Albert Park was once an affluent area reserved for only white people, but in the late 1980s, shortly before the democratic breakthrough of 1994, members of other race groups started making inroads by buying and renting properties there.
The weekend’s initiative to clean-up Albert Park was not the first time that such an operation was carried out.
In October, a joint operation led by, Premier Thamsanqa Ntuli, involving South African Police Services, Metro Police, Correctional Services, and Home Affairs, was also executed.
The operation led to the arrest of 15 people, including undocumented foreign nationals and a suspected drug dealer.
More than 200 homeless people were removed from the area in October but returned a mere week after.
The Dennis Hurley Centre, which has long been a sanctuary for Durban’s homeless, had previously expressed its dismay at the government’s “quick fix” mentality as they address homelessness.
Dr Raymond Perrier, the centre’s director, said: “It is unfortunate that local government persists in its thinking that there are quick fixes to deep social problems.”
Perrier, a former chairman of the eThekwini Task Team on Homelessness, argued that current policing methods had created additional problems, and cautioned against simplistic solutions that overlooked the wider implications of police actions.
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DAILY NEWS