Nine residents are listed as respondents and the tenth is the Heidedal community. The municipality is dragging the community to court for an application to ban residents from disrupting the multi-million rand Integrated Public Transport Network project. One of the community leaders and respondents in the case, Saintes van Wyk, said to OFM News that the Metro is racially excluding the coloured community from this project. He says this court action is an attempt by the metro to intimidate the community. Meanwhile, well-known Heidedaller and leader of the Patriotic Alliance, Gayton McKenzie, says he is supporting the community and paying for their legal representative. The case was postponed to November 7th to afford residents time to consult with their lawyer against the granting of the application.

“The Metro only sees coloured people as being good enough to be employed as tellers or consultants,” said McKenzie. He vowed to fight the matter and says he will put everything on the line to see the Heidedal residents respected and appreciated by the metro. McKenzie also accused the municipality of being ignorant because being excluded from the project does not only have an impact on coloured people but also black people living in the area. Advocate Craig Snyman – representing the municipality - requested that Judge Mareena Lani Opperman consider postponing the matter to 7 November 2019 to allow residents and their legal representative, Simba Chitando, to draft their responding affidavit. Snyman says this will allow and enable both legal teams to deliver their points of arguments before the Free State High Court. This after residents were unexpectedly summonsed with a court order in August and as a result, appeared at first without representation.

OFM News/Lucky Nkuyane and Dinovian Lewis