Students march on SARB
A group of protesting university students, calling themselves the Occupy Movement, marched to the South African Reserve Bank in Pretoria on Tuesday morning.
The students declined to speak to media but some in the small crowd were waving placards on which was written “Free education”.
The group marched through Pretoria central’s busy streets, including Thabo Sehume and Madiba, forcing traffic to divert. Several police vehicles followed the protesters.
However, no police officers led the protesters, leaving motorists to negotiate their own way past the crowd. Some motorists made swift u-turns in front of the approaching crowd.
Many shop owners also rushed to close their businesses as the crowd drew closer.
When the group arrived at the Reserve Bank, a large number of police officers and armoured Nyala personnel carriers could be seen.
The students proceeded to remove metal barricades and moved next to the central bank’s perimeter fence.
“Away with the dummy 0 percent no fee increase dummy. We reject that dummy. We want fees to fall, not to tell us about no fee increase. We reject that,” one of the protest leaders told the students.
Despite the recent announcement by President Jacob Zuma that there will be no university fee increases in 2016, students say this concession is not enough.
Last week, the protesting students stormed through the gates of Parliament in Cape Town while finance minister Nhlanhla Nene was delivering his medium-term budget policy statement. - ANA
(File photo)