The Pietermaritzburg railway station The Pietermaritzburg railway station. File Picture: Shelley Kjonstad/ African News Agency (ANA)
Durban - KwaZulu-Natal is losing and will continue to lose massive amounts of money in tourism revenue owing to the neglect of historic sites by provincial and local authorities.
This is the dire warning from former Amafa chairperson Arthur Konigkramer who has lamented how KwaZulu-Natal is in danger of losing its stature as a heritage giant as the province’s age-old monuments in most cities and towns are getting vandalised.
Amafa is the provincial heritage conservation agency for KwaZulu-Natal. According to the former chairperson, authorities such as municipalities should make sure that historic monuments such as statues, buildings and cemeteries should be preserved because they are national assets.
“The Pietermaritzburg train station has been stripped bare with people removing everything that they can lay their hands on, and this is quite sad,” Konigkramer remarked on Tuesday.
The station is famous as the site where a young lawyer Mohandas Gandhi was thrown off a train because he had boarded on the “whites only” carriage.
This incident is said to have been among the reasons that led Gandhi to starting the ‘Satyagraha’ movement, a non-violent, passive form of resistance against oppression.
Konigkramer warned that allowing historical sites to be vandalised amounted to denying future generations part of history and the lessons it provides.
He added that while there was poverty in many parts of the province, authorities were duty bound to ensure that the monuments were protected.
“It is scandalous what is happening at the moment, we are seeing buildings being stripped of their valuables and nothing is being done about it,” Konigkramer lamented.
He cited instances where graves dating to two centuries ago were vandalised as a sorry development which should not be allowed by authorities.
He noted how many KZN towns attracted overseas visitors over the past years, who had come to see the monuments, but expressed fears that there would be nothing left for tourists as vandals did as they pleased.
He challenged public representatives to make sure that the province’s heritage was not lost through theft and destruction by thieves and vandals.
One of the province’s monuments is the Pietermaritzburg City Hall which is said to hold the global record as the largest brick building in existence, and boasts beautiful stained glass displays and an enormous pipe organ.
According to Konigkramer, such monuments need to be protected for their priceless value.