Unemployment rises in village of Motlhabe.

Community Alerts/Lentswe Buda/Motlhabe-Rusenburg/11 July 2017

Motlhabe village located in the North-western part South Africa, 85Km from Rustenburg under the Moses Kotane local municipality, it happens to be one of the villages which are facing high rate of unemployment due to mine companies that has been retrenching employees lately.

The village of Motlhabe has been hosting Pilanesburg Platinum Mine (PPM) for 9 years now (since 2008), PPM has been hosting the main two companies which is Boynton and MCC, several years back Boynton left PPM and that has increased unemployment number in Motlhabe, last year another company by the name of Eagle has also withdrawn from PPM and unemployment worsened and this year January MCC employees received notices that the company is withdrawing from PPM by the end of June 2017. Today there is a large number of unemployed people in Motlhabe but yet still tenants are increasing, it’s unfair that we should be fed by tenants in our own land.

The previous week a lady from Impala came to Motlhabe with a post of employment which requires certain skills, age and certain period of experience, she was nearly attacked by the furious mob of Motlhabe youth, not even one from the whole unemployed youth were able to meet the set requirements, one asked “where are we expected to get those skills and experience from? We wouldn’t be here if we had such”.

The community is now planning to take an action towards the Pilanesburg Platinum Mine, they planning a massive protest hoping that the Pilanesburg Platinum Mine will start treating them as the rightful beneficiaries of this land. By Lentswe Buda