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Former glory shattered: Residents attend a community meeting in Steve Tshwete Local Municipality, where the economic fallout of Mpumalanga’s contracting coal sector is increasingly visible. Once one of the country’s top-performing municipalities, it is now struggling with falling rates payments, growing arrears and rising indigent support applications as retrenchments increase. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
COAL MINE CLOSURES
Video

Coal’s slow death in Mpumalanga

As jobs disappear from the coal belt, Middelburg’s economy is buckling. Unpaid rates, collapsing businesses and stalled transition support are deepening the crisis

  • Marcia Moyana
  • Thabo Molelekwa
8 min read