Once again, it appears as though Ndlambe Municipality is waiting until the last minute before it addresses the ongoing problem of overgrazed commonages and straying livestock.
There have been several orders against the municipality in the high court, none of which has resulted in the problems being resolved.
It must be frustrating for Agri EC and the Alexandria Agricultural Association to keep having to resort to the court, at much expense, to get the municipality to do its job.
And ordinary residents affected by the straying cattle are also relying on the litigation of these agricultural organisations and on the court orders actually having teeth.
As if to underline the issue, on Wednesday morning once again motorists on Albany Road had to come to a halt or risk colliding with a herd of cattle crossing the road at the intersection with Pascoe Crescent and further up Albany near Port Alfred High School.
These cattle don’t “escape” from dedicated grazing areas. Their owners and handlers purposefully let them loose in the residential areas to forage for whatever grazing they can find as the mismanaged municipal commonages are overgrazed and the owners have made no other plans to provide for their beasts.
There are existing bylaws in our municipality which were meant to address such issues, in keeping with the Animal Identification Act, the Animal Diseases Act, and the Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act, and a pound was established years ago precisely to impound strays and require the owners to pay fines to get their animals released.
But there has been no will in the relevant municipal departments to enforce these measures.
We are left with the absurd situation that if motorists come across cattle in the road, they have to contact the fire station, which in turns contacts the “rangers” who round up the cattle and herd them back to Nemato.
So, in the municipality’s mind, it’s only a problem if someone complains, or worse, actually collides with one of these beasts.
There is a legitimate suspicion that the “rangers” are the very herdsmen who let the cattle wander in the first place.
We also learned there are councillors and members of SAPS who own some of these cattle.
To date, the municipality has not had an adequate comprehensive system in place to resolve these issues, which is why Agri EC went to court several times over the past six years.
The mayor, municipal manager and other responsible officials will need to take real action to avoid the contempt of court application looming over them.
– Jon Houzet
