An elderly couple enjoying their morning coffee looked on in dismay as hundreds of African National Congress Youth League members sang and danced their way past an Italian cafe and into the upmarket Ballito Junction mall on Thursday morning.

 Inside an Absa branch‚ pensioners stood aghast‚ unable or unwilling to brave the crowd outside the security doors.

The league made their presence known in the plush coastal hamlet‚ forming a singing picket line outside the Absa branch.

Police officers formed a human barricade preventing the placard-toting protesters from storming the branch.

The Youth League members vowed to continue their protest throughout the day.

Last week during protests in the Durban city centre‚ hundreds of members got past security and into the branch itself.

The ANCYL has embarked on the protest in reaction to a preliminary Public Protector report which found that Absa had allegedly benefitted from an unlawful apartheid-era bailout from the South African Reserve Bank when it bought Bankorp in 1992. Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane recommended‚ in the leaked report‚ that Absa pay back R2.25 billion.

According to a statement handed out by Absa’s marketing manager‚ Dante Mashile‚ the bank reiterated its stance that the report in question was a draft and “may change substantially“.

“We have written to the Public Protector informing her that we accept her invitation to make further submissions. These submissions will correct several factual and legal inaccuracies that are contained in the provisional report.”