Poverty in the middle of 5 big platinum mines while political parties use food to campaign and don’t consult people

04/05/2020
Ikemeleng
By: Buti Botopela

Ikemeleng is a mining community within the vicinity of 5 big mining houses namely Sibanye Stillwater, Glencore, Samancor, Lanxess and Anglo American Platinum and it’s situated just +-7km outside Rustenburg Central Business District.

Poverty is a major issue around the community of Ikemeleng as people suffer the most with food than anything else, since this pandemic Covid-19.

We were called in numbers with hopes to register for food parcels but to date no one has never got one only politicians has.

Community Political organizations are campaigning with the food for the poor as now we have several cases about how the food are distributed amongst the politicians in the community at night time.

Some community members I met whom we were together on the day of the registration for food parcels.
“Said”
Food parcels are distributed amongst the politicians within the community of ikemeleng only at night and people are hungry and our political leaders aren’t worried about the members of the community at large.

Now it’s high time political leaders and NGO’s contribute back to the communities which their working with as people suffer the most especially the activists need support to sustain the poverty.

We activists are part of the community we living in and we all experience the same poverty as most of us are unemployed.

To date there is no help either from the government or NGO’s,we need to be taken serious about the effort and time invested in fighting for the voiceless and it’s up to us that we will be taken serious in this difficult time.

A lot has happened since this covid-19, and we have never been consulted about the procedures to get the food parcels as we were consulted before to come in numbers and register.

We really need assistance or support from organizations and government spheres to help in this matter