More than 100 unemployed residents of Macassar gathered outside the gates of the newly-established Firgrove Industrial Estate along Macassar Road to participate in a peaceful protest on Monday 2 February.
Placards broadcasting the group’s grievances were held high at the entrance to the estate as demonstrators voiced their frustrations.
The group contends it is fundamentally unfair for these businesses to provide employment primarily to people from outside Macassar, while local unemployment rates remain unprecedentedly high and many families suffer intense poverty.
Community leaders, led by Ziyaad Sultan, Christiaan Stewart and Marco Williams, handed over a memorandum highlighting the group’s specific demands to a representative of the estate.
Sultan, organiser of the protest, said the representative promised that feedback regarding the demands would be communicated within three days.
“If we do not receive a satisfactory response, we will stand at the entrance of the estate with our posters every week until our demands are heard,” he related.
Prompted for comment, Dudley Annenberg, managing director of the Annenberg Property Group, the developer of Firgrove Industrial Estate, said management would engage with the community leaders in the course of next week. “Suffice to say, the majority of people working in Firgrove Industrial Estate live in Macassar,” he said.
Organisers said they were later served with a court-order application by management seeking to prevent them from protesting. “A peaceful protest action will be held on Monday 16 February at 09:00. These will continue until we have a satisfactory reply from Firgrove Industrial Estate management,” Sultan said.
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