Tunatazama - Community Monitors

Polluters must pay for environmental harm at Emalahleni

Sbongile Masina

Date: 21 June 2024

Name: Sibongile Prudence Masina

Municipality: eMalahleni

Province: Mpumalanga

Polluters must pay for environmental harm at Emalahleni

Emalahleni is a highly polluted place in Mpumalanga. Around eMalahleni we are suffering from air pollution, because of the mines that surround our community. Most people are unemployed and many are sick because of the pollution.

As activists in our community, we interviewed the youth that hung around the shops. We asked them why are they not working, and they responded that they were not fit to work in the mines due to lung sickness. They were also not competent and failed a medical test that was conducted by the mines before they got the job. Sbusiso Nkosi is one of the guys who failed this test at Kusile power station and he has a forklift certificate.

Houses are cracking because of blasting, but there’s still no employment. Communities can’t plant because of emissions that are being released during the day and night, plants are not growing well. Lack of employment, prices are going up, how are we going to survive konwing that most people who are employed by the mines are not even community residents? People are not employable because of the air pollution that is caused by them.

On the 13th of June 2024, Eyethu Coal released emissions during the day at around 16:30 and with a different colour. The colour was orange and everyone wondered which chemical did they used and why. Our young ones with fragile lungs, what is going to happen to them?

On the 20th of March 2024, as an organisation (VEM) we went to (DMRE) to complain about air pollution and our land. We even signed a memorandum to fight for what is rightfully ours. We were wearing pampers written “Our buttons are not CVs (curriculum vitae), let the interview be in boardrooms and not in bedrooms!” What happens? Who answered?

Our very own South Africans are selling our lives because of money. None of our municipalities took us seriously because we are moneyless. What they say is that miners bring money, what about the lives that we lost? Our children are suffering from sinuses, asthma, and tuberculosis, and no one wants to take action in our society

According to the way of doing or thinking, our DMRE and municipality should help our people according to what they want. If they stop thinking about money and their pockets and think of the dying society, in addition municipality without people is not a municipality.

Department of Health, DMRE, the local municipality, and the Department of Social Development should come to our cooperative to work together for the future of tomorrow.  Let everyone play their role to stop the corruption and increase the level of communication, BE THE CHANGE THAT YOU WANT TO SEE.

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