The falling gold price has shattered the fortunes of the South African mining industry, and the lives of hundreds of thousands who depend on mining jobs for their survival
Angella Johnson
THE round metal Lesotho pot was boiling nicely. Makabelo Ntaote added more cow dung and wood to the fire. She used to have a small gas cooker, but these days there is no money to buy fuel. Actually, there is has been little to put in the pot since her husband lost his job as a miner last year.
He is one of the estimated 70 000 Lesotho men retrenched by the South African mining industry during the past 10 years who have returned home to a land with little or no job prospects and a slew of dependants with no other source of income.
“He’s not been able to find any work since then, and we are no longer in a good financial situation,” said a resigned Ntaote (36).
“He was at the Western Deep Levels number three in Carletonville, Gauteng, but they said the mine was no longer doing so good.”
Ntaote, her six children, widowed mother and mother-in-law all depended on the R500 her husband sent home every month. Now she brews and sells the pungent Sotho traditional beer, favoured by local men because of its cheap potency.
“That’s how I’ve managed to put food on the table, but we can’t afford much else,” said a blanket-clad Ntaote, as she leaned over the cooking pot and stirred vigorously. “The younger children don’t even go to school any more. I don’t know how long we can go on like this.”
The road to her village, Qoaling, is a bumpy and steep ride up towards the sky. Though only half-an-hour’s drive from the capital city Maseru, you could be in deep countryside – in a dry, dusty and almost barren land. Most homes have no electricity and water is collected from a central pump.
Mamoeketsi Matsoso, who has been the chief since her husband died in 1992, is not sure how many people live in this poverty- riddled settlement perched along the side of a mountain.
But she knows that many of its menfolk have nothing to do since they returned. Men like Nkhethoa Matsoso (47) who was laid off after the 1987 national miners strike.
He also worked at the Carletonville gold mine. “It’s been tough, man,” he said. “I had seven dependants – my wife, my two children, my parents and two other relatives. So I tried to stay and find another mining job, but couldn’t find anything there or here.”
Money worries finally drove him and his wife apart. Matsoso now lives alone and spends most of his time drinking cheap beer in the local shebeen. “Sometimes I do a little piecework as a bricklayer, but mostly there’s nothing else to do.”
He sympathises with those miners recently made redundant and predicts a bleak future. “Some are in good shape at the moment, but soon the money will run out and they will have only this to look forward to.”
Landlocked Lesotho, a dirt-poor kingdom the size of Belgium, is used to exporting its unskilled labour to fuel the mining industry of its mighty South African neighbour, but it has made no provisions for those who fall victim to economic slumps.
According to Marks Masoetsa, regional representative for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM): “Most of these ex-miners are living rough in Maseru, waiting for the recruitment agencies to help get them new jobs.”
The majority are ill-educated and have no real skills for anything but mine work.
Out of a population of nearly two million people, only about 42% are believed to be in regular employment – mostly in the civil service, police and army. “The government used to benefit from the money coming into the country from these mineworkers to keep our economy going, but are doing nothing to help. There are no welfare benefits. These people are just thrown on the scrapheap,” said Masoetsa.
He was himself sacked after five years on a mine in the Free State, following the 1987 strikes, and only got this job in 1991.
Nqosa Mahao, senior lecturer in the department of public law at the University of Lesotho, is worried about the social changes brought about by these returnees. “It’s already been very traumatic. This has had a definite impact on society at large. For almost 100 years between 40% and 50% of our able-bodied men could find work in the mines. It helped to cushion the economy.”
Now the cushion has lost some of its stuffing, crime has become a huge problem, stock theft is up in border areas and the breakdown in family values is one of the social ills that has seeped into villages where extended families had been a way of life.
Although there appear to be no true crime statistics, Mahao insisted crime has reached alarming proportions with organised gangs operating in the rural areas. “The future is pretty bleak. I see increasing spousal abuse, child abuse and other problems usually associated with big urban sprawls,” he said.
“With the gold price plummeting and more retrenchment imminent, things will only get worse. The country could soon become ungovernable – some parts already have.”
His family comes from a village where in a three-week period some 20 people were killed in gang-related shootings.
But the main problem facing the country is impoverishment, as these miners usually have 10 people or more reliant on their income. In the past agriculture supplemented this money, but the land cannot cope with the pressures of this increased demand.
Unemployment is reported to be in the region of 40%, but it could be more. “The traumatic problem is that we are completely ill-prepared as a society to cope with this surplus labour,” said Mahao.
He believes Lesotho is probably the most unstable country in the region. There have been five coups since independence in 1966, and constant squabbles between the government, the civil service, the police and the army continue to divert energies away from development.
This is exacerbated by the government losing some of the income it receives from exporting its workforce. About 50% of the national Budget comes from miners’ deferred pay – part of their wages (30%, though it used to be 60%) which employers send to Lesotho banks. It becomes readily available cash for the government until the miner returns to claim it.
Now that this fund has declined it will affect government finance of education, health and other programmes.
“I think the only logical way out is unity with South Africa. We are already tied to their economy, so why not go the whole way. Union would at least mean our people would get some kind of welfare and a pension,” suggested Mahao. It is not a popular opinion, but the NUM has voted for a similar course in the past.
Mathabo Moroho , whose husband works in a Western Areas mine shaft may sympathise with this course of action. “I don’t know about the gold price going down, but I have seen our men come back and become vegetables. It saddens me and I worry that the same might happen to my husband.”
In the meantime she is keeping her fingers crossed and supplementing their income by growing corn on a smallholding several kilometres on the other side of the mountain.
“I have four children and three other family members to look after with the money my husband sends every month, so women like me can’t just sit around doing nothing. If my husband’s job goes, we will have many problems.” It was a massive understatement.
Although the union has tried to help its members with retraining programmes and re- employment in other mines, it faces almost insurmountable odds. “We don’t have the infrastructure or a viable economy to sustain these people,” said Masoetsa. “Most villages don’t even have clean water or electricity. Everything here is expensive because it’s all imported from South Africa.”
Back in the village, Matsoso called on the government to set up its own programmes to stop the suffering: “Otherwise the cost to the country will be largely borne by its young.”
The number of abandoned children seems to have risen over recent years as their families cannot afford to feed them. “They don’t go to school, but turn to crime instead.”
The widow recently took in one such youngster who repaid her by running off with her R500 savings.