Peter Dickson
Impoverished rural Transkei faces a “real possibility of famine” unless there is large-scale government intervention, welfare groups warn.
Transkei Land Services Organisation acting director Simphiwe Ntshweni says widespread crop neglect and drought in the province is a recipe for disaster.
“The government should revive the parastatals and introduce irrigation schemes on a large scale to feed the people or famine is a real possibility in the Transkei,” Ntshweni says.
Operation Hunger worker Karin Claydon says “a large-scale disaster” is unfolding. She says “it is now the survival of the fittest”.
“I’ve tried to open [the government in] Bisho’s eyes to what happens when you remove social grants and they refuse to see or even listen. To remove R64-million [by cutting grants last year] from a rural economy is just asking for a disaster,” Claydon says.
“I’ve done everything I possibly can. I wrote to [former welfare minister] Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi last year, but there is a new minister now and I’ve got to start all over again.”
Claydon is writing a thesis on the role of rural small businesses and intends sending a copy to President Thabo Mbeki when she completes it as another warning that people are starving in the Eastern Cape.
Mbeki’s mother is a shopkeeper in the province, and Claydon is hoping he will understand their warnings.
“The shopkeepers play a very important role, they are like local welfare offices. They are telling us that 90% of their trade is now on credit, that turnover has shrunk and that their businesses are starting to collapse,” Claydon says.
“In Ngqeleni near Umtata, women are back to walking barefoot, the kids are back to wearing blankets. These people have worn shoes for 30 years, it is a clear indication we’ve stepped back. People are now feeding up to 13 people on one social grant, some even more.”
Several factors have influenced crop neglect in villages that are still heavily dependent on subsistence farming and where maize is the staple food.
Ntshweni says land allocation is happening too slowly and is an important source of the power of Transkei chiefs. Premier Makhenkesi Stofile conceded before the election that changing the system is not going to be easy.
Widespread land erosion has prevented people planting in many areas and extended families are relying on a single breadwinner for income.
Rural Transkei has long been a labour pool for Gauteng mines, but the closure of many over the past few years has dumped thousands of men in unemployment lines, while a R500 monthly state pension for the elderly hardly stretches to supporting families.
“These people simply do not have the means, the money, for manure, let alone machinery,” Ntshweni says. “They, more than any others, are hoping that the Mbeki government does something.”
Bisho agriculture representative Thembelani Stamper says Transkei maize production has “increased drastically” this harvest, “but the production scale at the moment is not enough and we seriously need to unlock the Eastern Cape’s potential”.
Stamper says he does not believe the threat of famine to be true “but food security is being taken very seriously”.
“Our priority strategy for the next five years is to increase household incomes. People are used to farming for their stomachs, but they must start producing for the market as well from the household surplus.”
Stamper says government’s job is to “facilitate a conducive environment for farmers to farm productively. We provide infrastructure, empowerment funds and grants to kickstart small projects. We are restructuring the Land Bank as well.”
Bisho welfare representative Mamkeli Ngam says 140 poverty relief projects funded to the tune of R4-million are now under way in Transkei. Ranging from bread baking to pottery and sewing, they are centered mainly in the Qumbu, Umtata and Encobo districts “to provide a better life for the people in the areas most in need”.
Churches have also been galvanised into action.
Transkei Methodist leaders last week agreed to drive a R100-million fund for community- based development projects to fight poverty and unemployment.