Our town is now a ghost town

Thabo Ishmael Choledi

Jagersfontein is a decent town that has been neglected for decades, by the ones in power.
What disappointments me is that during the apartheid, Jagersfontein was the richest and most
beautiful town where tourists used to visit and learn more about the town. Today it is a ghost
town with a bankrupt municipality that has no revenue in its bank account. Workers dont get
their salaries as usual and worker’s pension fund is also stolen by these officials. The
municipality can’t pay its bills like Centlec electricity and also Bloemwater which changed into
Vaal Central Water. They also can’t manage the town itself, from cleaning to developing it.
One will understand that Jagersfontein is where everything started, like water supply and
electricity supply. You will also remember that the first mine started here and a railway train that
was very helpful for the benefit of the community. All that was developing in the town were
vandalized and destroyed for no reason.
We are still crying and calling for our government to consider the issue of the railway train that
can almost develop the whole district of Xhariep and neighboring towns, through jobs and
development. We still want to know the reason why our train has been canceled because it was
very meaningful to our parents and even to us as the youth, so we urge those in power to
consider this issue.
We grew up and found our train station being vandalized and it was a beautiful plan for our
future but now they made it useless, so I think it’s time for us as members of the community to
bring back what belongs to Jagersfontein.