Ipeleneng tender war in Mochudi

Lerato Maleke | Monday March 10, 2014 16:56

 

It does not take require a genius to find out why the Ipelegeng tender is being so bitterly fought for in Mochudi; at P6,000 a month that job pays an ordinary villager the equivalent salary of a university graduate. On one side are the Junior Certificate (JC) and Form Five dropouts queuing for the tenders and on the other hand are the village paupers and the elderly, who believe the tenders were introduced to help them survive.

There was blood on the floor last Monday as the youth and the elderly fought bitterly over the auctioning of the tenders at Boseja Northward, resulting in the cancellation of the whole process to Wednesday. The elderly and the paupers who believe the tenders are meant for them are complaining that they are being swarmed by a large turnout of youths, mainly JC and Form Five drop-outs whom they allege should not be queuing for the tenders with them (the elderly).

The elderly are of the view that the youth should be somewhere either looking for school opportunities or better jobs in towns, but the youngsters see things differently; they view the Ipelegeng tenders as stepping stones to developing their entrepreneurial spirits

There is a third group, the Village Development Committee (VDC) members, who also want a stake in the Ipelegeng tenders.  You would think the VDC members are largely those middle and high class members of the community who would not have anything to do with Ipelegeng jobs; but here the VDC members want each one of them to have a role in supervising the preparations of the phaphatha, a job that pays quite handsomely at supervisor level, by any village standard.

However, the villagers who are reading malice into the VDC’s motives have voiced their disgust at what they see as the VDC’s excuse to enrich themselves, but the VDC argues that they need to supervise the  preparations of the phaphatha and fona from house-to-house, because, they allege, some of these diphaphatha don’t taste good, or the fona is sometimes too watery.

VDC chairperson Segale Monametsi says the VDC committee  agreed among themselves to take over as supervisors of the diphapahtha and fona, but admitted the villagers are putting pressure on them to back down.