Beggars on streets of diamonds
Lebogang Baingapi | Friday June 26, 2015 15:29
The problem of squatting has grown in leaps and bounds since the establishment of Jwaneng Township 34 years ago. Annually, hundreds of people make the pilgrimage to the mining town with hopes of securing employment at the mine or associated businesses and not everyone is lucky. In 2012, the Jwaneng Town Council evicted scores of squatters and today the numbers are even higher.
A preliminary survey conducted recently by the council’s Physical Planning Division has revealed that there are currently more than 200 squatters within the Jwaneng planning area, with the majority living within the built-up areas, especially in the A2 industrial site. The squatters live in areas where there is no potable water supply, sanitation and sewage facility.
According to the Assistant District Commissioner, Bonakele Nyoni, the local authority has engaged a task team of about 20 people from different government departments to brainstorm on a solution to the challenge. The team comprises, among others, physical planning personnel, police officers, District Commissioners and Social and Community Development Office staff as well as the district development officer, Solomon Mphotho, who is the chair.
Nyoni says the team will give recommendations to the Urban Development Committee after making its assessments.
The task team’s job, he explains, is to profile every squatter providing details on where they come from. Tough love is expected to follow the assessments.
“We are not promising them anything. What we want is to send them home. We will apply for an eviction court order through the Ministry of Lands and Housing to evict them from those areas,” he says.
“The committee has been given three months to perform an assessment and submit a report. They are currently in their first month.” A Mmegi newscrew that visited the squatter camp set upon an atmosphere of disillusionment and despair. The marginalised group composed mainly of the illiterate, barely have identity cards and spend most of their time doing casual piece jobs in the diamond-rich town.
These poverty-stricken citizens live in ramshackle plastic structures and depend on benevolence and menial jobs for a living. These illegal squatters were chased from another squatter camp in a nearby industrial site. The camp is known as Senthumule Madeluka named after the then Minister of Lands and Housing, Ramadeluka Seretse who evicted squatters from the industrial site a few years ago. The squatters scattered into the bush and are now camped outside the town fence. Walking into the bush, everything appears normal until plastic structures suddenly come into view. Here, the crew finds 31-year-old Kagiso Gabaobatle originally from Moshaweng village.
“My earliest memory is of quitting school while doing Standard 1 and going to work as a herdboy,” he says, as he grabs an old tin paint can to sit on.
“Life in Jwaneng is hell on earth and I am thinking of relocating to our lands in Seletse to try my luck in farming.
“I survive on piece jobs because I don’t have an identity card.”
With a look of depression, Kagiso struggles to breathe and is unable to hide the pain as he elaborates on how the lack of an identity card has crippled his life. In a different compound is a family headed by 23-year-old Balepile Gabaobatle and his girlfriend Malebogo Tsogo. Malebogo quickly confesses that she does not know her age. An illiterate, the young woman goes into her shack and returns with a clinic card on which nurses have written her estimated age.
“Circumstances beyond my control led me to this camp. I left school in Standard 3 and I do not have an identity card, which is a living hell,” she says. Her boyfriend, Balepile has never seen the inside of a school in his life. The young man has a cousin named Kagiso who says he has been unable to secure formal employment or a part in the Ipelegeng programme due to the lack of an Omang.
Balepile, who hails from Maboane, says going to school is the last thing on his mind as “I already have a family to take care of . ”
Balepile’s mother, Ketshwarwaemang Nato, also lives in a plastic shack with five of her eight children. They are all not going to school. The family lives there with their father.
A pair of twins, who were part of the family, were adopted by a certain family in Serowe and Ketshwarwaemang does not know whether they are in school or what standard they are in if they are.
Ketshwarwaemang is illiterate and explains that she never went to school because of the distance. She also has the problem of an identity card and does not know her age.
“My relatives are demanding payment to help me do the identity card,” she says. “I would like to access government programmes such as Ipelegeng and others. I would love to attend Thuto-ga-e-golelwe though age is catching up with me.” Ketshwarwaemang is dependent on a boyfriend who makes a living out of selling firewood. “I blame politicians for the situation we are in. They don’t care about us because they know we cannot vote since we don’t have identity cards. ”
Ngami ward councillor, Bankinyana Montsiemang believes rather than eviction, only servicing and allocating land to Batswana can resolve the problem of squatters.
He believes low-paying companies are also to blame for the growth of squatters, as they drive people to desperation. “The money is not enough to pay the high rentals in Jwaneng and some people resort to becoming squatters.”