Protestors demand jobs at refurbished Brookside Mall

It's believed that the protestors are from the Jika Joe Informal Settlement.

They blocked several roads with burning debris from early Friday morning in the CBD. 

"With the high unemployment rate, people in the community were hoping that when Brookside Mall reopened again there would be employment opportunities,” says Melanie Veness from the Pietermaritzburg & Midlands Chamber of Business.

 "Unfortunately, there aren't enormous employment opportunities. Checkers is very good in that they retained 90 percent of their staff, which they deployed to other branches and now brought back to work at Brookside. So they were actually wonderful in that they ensured that those jobs were retained for the people that had been."

READ: Reopening of Brookside Mall 'shows incredible resilience'

Councillor Suraya Reddy there are also other issues that the people are unhappy about, including housing and electricity. 

Power was switched off on Monday during the Msunduzi Municipality's disconnection drive. 

Reddy says the city targeted the prefabricated houses due to tampering and by-passing the electricity meters.

She says residents were asked to supply proof of purchasing electricity if they want to be reconnected.

Police were on scene and monitoring the situation.