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Johannesburg – Gauteng police yesterday confirmed reports that buses carrying Democratic Alliance supporters to a rally in Kliptown, Soweto, were stoned. The DA’s Gauteng candidate Mmusi Maimane said in a statement that hundreds of DA members were being interviewed by police.
He said the buses were damaged in “ANC ambushes”.
Three buses were stoned, two of them severely, in Alexandra and near the FNB Stadium in Soweto where the ANC was holding its rally. The FNB Stadium is about 15km away from the Walter Sisulu Square.
Maimane said: “One bus was so heavily stoned that it is no longer usable.”
Brigadier Neville Malila said: “We received a report that there were two buses stoned on their way to Kliptown”.
The driver of one of the buses was injured and taken to hospital. No criminal case had been opened and no one had been arrested. Malila said there was no indication of who had stoned the buses.
Meanwhile, a row over the rebranding of two school buses in ANC colours erupted last week with the company that donated them demanding the buses be returned to their intended purpose, the Sunday Times reported.
The two school buses, donated by German electronics company Siemens, were rebranded at a cost of R90,000 through former president Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela, with money from the Mvezo Development Trust.
The buses have reportedly been used for the party’s election campaigns, meaning that the rural school they were donated to had to fork out around R9,000 a day to hire other buses to transport pupils to and from school.
Siemens demanded that the African National Congress branding be removed and that they be returned to the school for their intended purpose.
Mandla Mandela’s spokesperson Freddy Pilusa said Siemens had been aware of the rebranding.
“It is clear to all parties that the Siemens branding will be returned after the elections as per an agreement with Siemens.
“Chief Mandla is satisfied that at no point has the use of the buses in support of the ANC been to the detriment of the schoolchildren of the area.”- Sapa
Londile Moyo
Online Reporter