Bua Mining Communities

With 34 dead, 259 arrested and about 87 injured on the 16 th August the Lonmin are no where near backing down “sifuna R12-500” meet. Suspended ANC youth league leader Julius Malema came to address the workers at their secret, spiritual venue, and as you enter this venue women were all requested to take off anything on their heads, jewellery and loose change as it’s disrespectful to enter with those. Police left the place because workers were not feeling safe with them around.   This all transpired on the 18 th AUGUST : “Hospitals and mortuaries are full with our brothers bodies killed by policemen – workers shouted” and soldiers too. We didn’t commit any crime except demand a reasonable living wage. Our lips are dry, we fear going to our homes because we might be arrested so we sleep here and wake here, we will die for R12-500 just like our brothers and we won’t leave this place until our brothers are buried, discharged at hospitals and realised from jail and our deman...

Kagiso Padi (Mafenya) I conducted an interview about cracked houses in the village. I interviewed one of our monitors as he directly affecting by this issue at hand and lives in Mafenya. I asked him what he thinks is the cause of this problem and his response was that: ·          The four shafts surrounding us are the cause because they are close to us about 10km away. ·          He also mentioned that this cracked house were build by the mine (Bafokeng Rasimone Platinum Mine- RBPlats) when they were relocated from Lekgoropane to Mafenya. ·          The mine guaranteed them that they will not be affected by their operations. I walked around the village and I saw many cracked houses that were built by the mine and those that were there before. Mines are affecting us in many ways and they should account for their actions and fix w...

Kagiso Molefi (Mafenya) Mafenya community is a small village surrounded by heal near Chaneng and Robega. People from this community experience a lot of problems but their major problem is lack of transport. I interviewed four people whom are affected by this problem because they have to use public transport daily and asked to remain anonymous. Two of the interviewees said the problem can’t be solved until the potholes on the road are fixed. The common problem is low population so people think that cause the taxi drivers to neglect Mafenya as it has no business for them. People are unhappy because this problem restricts their movement, one of the interviewees said that he works at Sun City and if he miss a taxi to Mafenya at 3h00 he has to take a taxi to Chaneng and walk to Mafenya without any luck of a taxi for local. The other interviewee is a pregnant woman and she mentioned that when she goes for her check-up at the clinic she is challenged and is forced to take school taxi’s...

  Buti Botopela (Ikemeleng) The danger of busy and high accident roads from town (Rustenburg CBD) and local mining industries to Ikemeleng which has claimed many lives and left several in injured. ·          This busy road has high accident rate and potholes, no road signs, during rain this road became a mad trap for those who try to walk and drive, so the Ikemeleng residents are immobile during rainy days because of this roads. *I interviewed Mkhulu a resident of Ikemeleng. I choose him because he is from the informal settlements in Ikemeleng and experience the impact of this road (lack of service delivery) first hand. Key points from the interview ·          Potholes ·          No road signs ·          Speed humps ·          Traffic robots ·  ...

Problem in Ikemeleng Saving young people by giving them jobs The frustrations, hardships and temptations faced by unemployed young people. In our community the unemployed pool grows, with new graduations, matriculates’ and drop outs who can’t find work. Each year there are thousand of unemployed queues, for over ten years there has been finger pointing exercise with the government and the council complaining about the laziness of young people, and how they are alliterated and demanding jobs. Frustrated young unemployed people are responding by burning tyres, trashing streets and demanding job opportunities. The blaming and the burning tyres remain, even worse everywhere there are “NO JOBS” signs blocking young people. Both the public and private sector should review their employment programmes to accommodate all young people from Ikemeleng. The sad truth is the higher the unemployment rate the higher the rate of drug and substance abuse among youngsters or even opt prostit...

      Tshepang Sarah Rambao (Bapong)     Segwaelane is a small undeveloped village in Brits. The village is recognized by popular platinum mine which is located there. The operation of this mine puts both the community and the environment in danger. As a mine operates, there are chemicals, water and different substances that are released. This is unwanted and waste materials from the mines. As a result the Eastern platinum mines designed their dumping side. The dumping side is very large and dangerous. Inside of the dumping there is also water that mixed up with soil and formed mud plus all different chemicals the mine uses. So this is a mixed up of different materials that can cause a chemical reaction, the possibility of an eruption is very high. It may happen that the dumping erupts, and then the village is in danger because the dumping is huge enough to cover the village. If it also fills up and overflow it will be a disaster th...