Makgaba endures 44 years of misery

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Monday September 27, 2010 00:00

Makgaba settlement is situated about 20 kilometres from Mokubilo Village. Residents say that they have to go to Mokubilo for services. Makgaba residents say they have been staying in that settlement for as long as they can remember. Some of them are pensioners who say that they were born there but to their astonishment, their settlement has not been gazetted as a village.

The residents complain that though they are more than 500 in population, they are not eligible for government services.

Forty-four year old Nchadi Ditshego says that she has been in Makgaba since she was born and there is no other place she knows as home. She will not move to Mokubilo as suggested.

She said life in Makgaba is difficult because they do not have clean drinking water and other resources. 'The pipe passes here along the road to Mokubilo and Mmeya but we do not have any water here, we have to drink from the pond where we share our drinking water with cattle, donkeys, goats and dogs,' she said.

The Monitor went to drinking sites and found that indeed residents shared the water with animals.

Ditshego further revealed that they do not have a school though they have nurses coming from Mokubilo twice a month. 'We were promised classrooms but that never happened right now we have a place where nurses from Mokubilo come twice month,' she said. 

Another resident, Kebasetse Mothowame, complains about a site that was designated a kgotla. 'We were later told that it could not be a kgotla because we are not a village. So now it is a place where we go when there are meetings or when pensioners get their money,' she said.  The residents also complained because they have to go to Mokubilo to be hired in drought relief programs. They say this is unfair.

'How can we go that far to work for Drought Relief? We have nowhere to stay there and we cannot have money for transport every day,' said Mothowame.

Another resident, Ditshego Kearabile, complained that residents who are on TB treatment fail because they have to go to Mokubilo every day for six months.

'We cannot afford that because transport is four pula and everyday for the next six months is steep for us because we do not work and we cannot leave our goats for that long,' he said.

He believes that people living with HIV and elderly people have been victimised because they were taken off the list of people who get food rations.

'Old people cannot work and people who are on ARV's and not fit enough cannot work either and end taking medication on empty stomachs. Next they will be saying that we died because of alcohol,' he added. Ryder Mothowame noted that politicians make false promises at election time.

'They all know that we are desperately in need of water so each and every one of them who comes tells them that the water issue will be a priority,' he said.

Mokubilo headman, Badiseng Resetse, however, revealed that people of Makgaba are not staying there legally. He said that though they have not been briefed formally, they are supposed to move to Mokubilo. 'They do originate from there and it seems government does not want a village there,' he said.

He says those people have no means of making a living while staying there though their argument is that they cannot move because they have been there for a long time and they have built homes.  He further confirmed that residents do have a problem when they have to get their ARV's and medical help.

'They do not have money for transport and the economy is quite bad there, so sometimes they can not come to Mokubilo for important things like that,' he added.