BCL employees speak
Onalenna Kelebeile | Wednesday October 19, 2016 17:08
This has not only left them with a psychological distress but hopelessness of where their next meal would come from after they receive their last salaries at the end of this month. They have already received threats by commercial banks that failure to pay their outstanding loan balances would attract serious penalties. They are forced to terminate their insurance policies because they cannot honour subscriptions anymore and they are likely to relocate back home without anything in their hands because there is no guarantee that they will get anything after the liquidator concludes his investigations.
It is for the first time in the history of the mine that it reaches a point where employees are told to stay home and even denied access into the mine. The workers are now spending working hours at home and worry is written all over their faces as they contemplate the future.
Some just wander around the mall, meet colleagues, and stay in groups that gradually expand, as conversations grow around the tragedy that has befallen them. The first sign that proves that the town is ailing is lack of emissions from the smelter that Selebi-Phikwe is fondly known for.
Matshidiso Letsosanye, a 42-year-old from Kgagodi joined BCL in 2013.
He has nothing to show for the three years that he has been working for the mine save for a deformed figure as a result of a mine accident he suffered in June this year. “On the fateful day I reported for work as usual and as I was working a large rock rolled down and hit me fracturing my hip and pelvic bone in the process,” he said. Since then he has not been going to work but instead the mine would dispatch a vehicle to take him to the physiotherapist and back to the house.
This was stopped without his knowledge. He explained that he missed the therapy for three days because the vehicle could not come. “I called the mine to enquire and I was told that there was no fuel and that even the vehicles have been ordered to park. I am now forced to walk on crutches to and fro without any assistance from the mine. Also painful enough is that the BCL closure arrived while was still yet to receive compensation for my injuries. The mine had booked me for a medical check up at Bokamoso Hospital next month so I doubt if it will materialise,” he said, in obvious agony.
Letsosanye regrets that as he would be relocating back to the village he has nothing to show to his parents except to come crippled and incapable to carryout any domestic duties. He is renting a house in Botshabelo and stays with his three children and an unemployed wife.
“I was not ready for the sudden end of my job and I am going to burden my family back home more so that I have an injury now. I cannot even look for a job under this condition,” he said.
Keleapere Morupisi, 56, from Lerala is also agonising on how he is going to clear off his loan balance and how he is going to provide for his unemployed family worsened by the fact that the little he earned could not allow him to save anything.
“What I earned was not even enough to support us for a month. I have got no skill except a blasting certificate I got from BCL. My next move is to go and herd my cattle back at home,” he said.
He added that he leaves the mine with not so good health because he worked under a lot of dust and this gave him some breathing problems and develops blisters and sores between toes as a result of flowing water at his workplace.
“I got treatment from the mine hospital and in private medical facilities through BCL medical aid but now my life is in danger. I live in a mine house that I have to vacate now and after October my life will be a mess because I was not prepared. I was only ready to retire in 2020,” he said.
He feels that the mine could have considered laying off those who are left with few years and less to retire and leave the youth who are starting life. He has already started terminating his insurance policies including funeral insurances because he cannot afford premiums anymore.
Letsogile Kegakologetswe of Mahalapye says the situation is emotionally taxing because they did not expect it. He said because they were paid peanuts it was impossible for them to save for eventualities such as this one. “I am one of the people who come from not so rosy background so I could not save while burdened with the responsibility of a breadwinner and to build a house for my parents.
“For the first time, the bank came last week to inform us that failure to pay our loans may result in us being sent to jail. We have always been made to understand that loans are insured and we hoped insurance company would come in now but it seems we are alone in the lurch. If there would be any package that I will get it will go directly to the bank,” he said.
He said the situation right now shows that most of the employees will either auction their possessions to fill the gaps. “My mother is late and I was working with my father who has been in the mine for the past 30-years but still earning P2,000. My pension policy is likely to be terminated by now because we know that BCL had periods where it failed to pay part of its premiums,” he said.
He added that the solution is for him to go back home because the little they expect from the liquidator would not have any effect to cushion their lives. He feared that some of them would become thieves while others are likely to commit suicide.
The three employees pitied those who were engaged by the mine as casual labours for about five years because they are not entitled to any dues.