Kgafela Nowhere as Nyalala transforms Moruleng
Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Monday November 24, 2014 15:47
The week-long festivities in Moruleng were part of those held in commemoration of 20 years of democracy in South Africa. Nyalala used the occasion to host various cabinet ministers, provincial governors and mayors, at a royal banquet and music festival in Sun City.
Nyalala’s stronghold on Bakgatla ba Moruleng’s throne seems to be gaining strength by the day. He is now being addressed as His Royal Highness, and he has his royal council, which includes even those royal members who once fought against him, except Kgafela II, of course.
Nyalala has become the model of what a tribal king can do for his people in South Africa, with his ambitious and fruit bearing efforts that include concluding lucrative mining deals, industrial development deals, and real estate deals that are benefiting his people, a rare case in South Africa. At Mogwase, outside Moruleng, Nyalala is raising an industrial town already manufacturing hand gloves for the mining industry, treating and packing firewood.
He has already built a huge state of the art national stadium, a state of the art tribal museum, and a road construction leading into Moruleng, a 15 mega-litre water treatment plant, as well as a P450 million Moruleng mall.
So outstanding has been Nyalala’s examples that he was voted by other kings to lead them in their lobby to change the constitution of South Africa to recognise kings as drivers of developments in their areas not just as ceremonial figures.
Even without that envisaged law, Nyalala has catapulted forward. He says he is doing what he is doing in order to prove to nay-sayer’s that a king can perform just like a provincial government.
As he gathered multitudes to celebrate democracy in South Africa, Nyalala says democracy should also mean empowering traditional leaders to unleash their potential and develop their people.
Already he has surveyed the whole Bakgatla Ba Kgafela land, consisting of about 32 villages. He is marketing the surveyed land for various economic purposes to interested developers.
The mega-ideas include plans to construct residential flats, golf estate, community housing, a public private hospital, a civic centre, the Moruleng cultural heritage and traditions, among others.
Through a company called Bakgatla Bakgafela is not only satisfied with investment in the lucrative platinum mines in his area, he has ambitions to tap into large-scale agriculture, food processing, meat rearing and processing, and other traditional rulers in South Africa are starting to take notice.
Batlokwa of South Africa are working with him to take advantage of their dam, Molatedi and venture into large-scale agriculture.