Oil and gas fracking

Makhotla Sefuli

Makhotla Sefuli
Matjhabeng Local Municipality
FREE STATE PROVINCE
14th October 2022

#gasandoilfracking

The second phase of the gas fracking in Matjhabeng is in full swing, despite the concerns raised by the farming communities around the area where the plant is located.

The target is to drill over a hundred holes around the farms, so far a total of fuorteen holes have been drilled. That means the project still has along way to go, but the question is who will continue to suffer on the recieving end.

As GUBICO together with VEJA we continue to mobilise communities that are hosting the company that is drilling the holes on their farms.

Over the weekend of 14th to 15th October we had a community capacity building meeting with stakeholers.The main focal area was the around the issue of compliance and social labour plans.
The first leg of the workshop kicked off in Meloding and Virginia where community members were empowered with knowledge on the issues of compliance and their rights as residents of the town that is the mining company.

The second leg kicked off on the various farms around Virginia. Farm workers still don’t know their rights as people who share custodianship of the land they reside on.
Some of them were lured with promises of employment by the mining company, however only a handful of them were given employment while majority of them continue to live in abject poverty.
Young people don’t see any change or prospects of improvement even with the presence of a multi million dollar project on their doorstep.

The farms are littered with many holes on the ground that are fenced with highly radioactive electric wires,the pipelines go through their homes and no one ever cared to consult with them.
One farm equipped with solar panels as part of the social labour plan but that is not enough even for cooking.Right next to their houses is a highly radioactive terminal that has cameras installed and an alarm that goes off whenever anyone walks within close range of the terminal.

The people have since requsted the team of GUBICO and VEJA to come bavk again for another empowering workshop.

This is a massive campaign that needs the participaton of all stakeholders including our partners such as Benchmarks Foudation to put all hands on deck to ensure that comunities get what is due to them.