One of the first things one notices when approaching Siyathemba township in Balfour, Mpumalanga, is a white cross erected at the corner of Joe Slovo Road.
A spray of shacks — one about the size of the average suburban bathroom — nestle in the greenest of grasses to present a very South African backdrop.
The cross carries a message in red script. “Siyathemba Jeso” (We have hope, Jesus).
But for many residents here hope appears to be all but lost with people complaining many have been living in shacks for more than 10 years, some even longer.
Linah Nkuta, who is in her 30s, shares her father’s four-roomed RDP house — and an adjoining rusty tin shack — with eight other extended family members.
She has two children, while her elder sister, Selinah, has her own two and a grandson.
The siblings, along with their children, are dependent on social grants and their father’s R2 500 pay cheque from the Burnstone mine where he works.
“Nothing is going alright in Balfour. We’ll die and leave our kids in this rubbish dump … not because we want to, but because it seems our cries land on deaf ears,” said Linah.
Selinah said she has all but managed to convince herself that things will never get better. There’s a growing need for jobs for the unemployed youth, houses, a hospital in the area and a police station.
Heidelberg, the Gauteng town of about 70 000 next to the N3 highway, beckons.
“The only option I think … I’ll resort to taking my corrugated iron and head off to Heidelberg. Things are much better there,” Selinah said.
On a recent visit by the South African Press Association (Sapa) to Balfour, community leaders downplayed some residents’ fears that service delivery violence could hit the area again.
But wary shack dwellers confirmed to Sapa that meetings of disgruntled Siyathemba residents were being held and they did not rule out the possibility of violence erupting again.
Rioting in the area attracted the attention of President Jacob Zuma, who paid Balfour a surprise visit in 2009 and promised development would be accelerated. He next visited the town in May last year.
But according to Linah: “These boys will take to the streets any time soon … there’s been meetings that have been held about the situation, and the lack of feedback from President Jacob Zuma is only making the situation worse … people are not happy at all.”
‘Incompetent’ mayor
The cracked and unplastered house is in need of refurbishment. Rays of sunlight pierce tiny holes in the walls of the cramped lounge. She wonders just how safe it is to be living there.
Unemployed Linah blamed what she says is the worsening situation in Balfour on the “incompetent” mayor of the Dipaleseng Municipality, Piet Tsotetsi, known to most constituents as “Lefty”.
He earned residents’ ire when he reportedly called them “unskilled and uneducated” after complaints about unemployment in the area. During the 2009 protests residents called for his dismissal.
The issues of employment for the youth, underdevelopment, effective and efficient service delivery, water supply and the provision of residential sites and housing were some of the issues that residents want to be addressed.
Zuma visited Balfour in August 2009 after it garnered local and international headlines when angry residents took to the streets.
A delegation, led by the Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane was then sent to the township in September the same year.
A wide range of infrastructural improvements were promised, including: the hiring of permanent professional doctors for the Siyathemba Clinic and an upgrading of the facility, the establishment of a further education and training facility, the building of a police station, proper sanitation and, the most pressing issue for many residents, incorporation of the town into Gauteng from Mpumalanga.
Sapa’s recent visit found many despondent residents who complained that some of the promised projects had not been concluded or even begun.
‘Model municipality’
A library, satellite police station and municipal offices which were burnt down during earlier protests were in tatters and the facilities were overgrown with grass and weeds and strewn with rubbish.
Then Cooperative Governance minister Sicelo Shiceka was sent to investigate the uprising and told residents the government was implementing a turn-around strategy to make Balfour a model municipality.
But some residents now say the promises were a mechanism to cool tensions at the time of the violence.
“All promises made by Zuma and by Shiceka have yielded no results. The main issue of being put under Gauteng seems to have been relegated to the rubbish bin of history,” said Dumisani Ndoda Zwane, a community member who also chairs a local socialist civic movement and is co-convenor of a stakeholders forum pushing for incorporation into Gauteng.
Zwane made his comments before Gauteng local government minister Humphrey Mmemezi said last Thursday that Balfour is to be incorporated into Gauteng.
Mmemezi — who told reporters Balfour’s people “have long wanted to come to Gauteng … they believe we are delivering services” — gave no time frames, however.
Zwane said on Friday he was as yet unaware of any plans for incorporation.
“We have heard nothing.”
Municipal manager Patrick Malebye however said while a lot still needed to be done, there had been “great improvement”.
He painted a picture of a municipality hard at work, one that has developed about 98 houses out of a promised 100 since the visit by the president. This was done in partnership with the mine.
He said the refurbishment of the further education and training facility was among achievements and there are now improved communication channels between the municipality and the community.
A 24 hour clinic was also completed in Ntorwane — but financial constraints currently limit care to 12 hour periods.
“The department of health will in this financial year prioritise the staffing and equipping of the clinic to enable it to operate as planned,” Malebye told Sapa.
While some residents complained of ill-treatment by officials, Malebye said that they had received no reports.
At the Siyathemba Health Centre, which overlooks the congested township, a qualified doctor is now available five days a week at the wellness centre, while two additional doctors from Standerton hospital visit twice a week, he added.
Malebye indicated that residents’ water problems were also being attended to. The cleaning of reservoirs had started soon after the budget was allocated by Shiceka.
Yet residents complain that the water was at times of such poor quality that it looked like mud.
Malebye acknowledged that, occasionally, the water was not clean because of burst pipes and other factors.
On the incorporation issue, Malebye said that was out of the local authority’s hands. – Sapa