eThekwini Municipality gears up for bumper Easter weekend with 1.2 million visitors expected

The eThekwini Municipality is gearing up for a bumper Easter weekend with Mayor Cyril Xaba warning that law enforcement has been deployed across the city to ensure an incident-free holiday for all its visitors.

“Their duties include patrolling tourism sites, freeways, shopping malls, and church gatherings,” Xaba said.

“We intend to minimise road crashes and crime in general. We cannot achieve this alone but we need full cooperation from road users to ensure they abide by the rules of the road,” he added.

Xaba said the City is expecting around 1.2 million visitors, and more than 1,000 police officers will be patrolling tourism sites, freeways, shopping malls, and church gatherings.

“We are delighted that 20 of our bathing beaches remain open and safe for swimming, alongside 42 swimming pools across the city. To protect bathers, 200 lifeguards have been deployed along the coastline. In addition, the newly established Coastal and Tourism Policing Unit will patrol 100 kilometres of our coastline on foot, horseback, in vehicles, and on bicycles,” the Mayor said.

Meanwhile, during a multidisciplinary operation in Isipingo, south of Durban, 2,000 vehicles were stopped with100 motorists fined for defects, 15 for moving violations, and several summonses issued.

Police also effected 22 arrests for outstanding warrants and detained five drivers.

IOL