Lily Mine still spells hope for some

Johannesburg - Each morning when Kabelo Malepe wakes up, he goes to the nearby stream to wash. From there, he returns to the very same stream to draw water, which he will use to make himself breakfast and clean his little house.

The stream is the only source of water Malepe has. And what he calls home is not a proper house, just a structure made of logs, rocks and mud to hold everything together.

From there, he will go and wait on the main road in the hope that a passing motorist will ask him to cut wood for him up the mountains.

Depending on how much wood he gets, Malepe can make as much as R200 on a good day. However, there are times when he sits and waits on the side of the road for a month, and no one comes by wanting wood.

“If that happens, it means I don’t even have money for toiletries and have to use powder soap to bath,” he says.

What Malepe goes through daily is a reality for many people in Louieville, Mpumalanga, where he lives.

Although Louieville has two mines – Lily Mine and Barbrook – the area is very poor and has a high rate of unemployment. But many people still flock there looking for job opportunities.

The are no lights and it is pitch dark at night. There are many houses that look like Malepe’s because people are too poor to afford proper building materials.

“The RDP houses here can be counted; there are about 60 of them. We don’t have jobs and there are no services. We don’t protest because it’s pointless to do so.

“If we try to close the road to protest, the police will be called and they will disperse us with rubber bullets,” Malepe says.

According to him, job opportunities are limited in Louieville and people have few choices when it comes to making an income.

“You either work on the mines or on the farms. If you don’t get a job there, you sit at home and hope that people will ask you to go and cut wood for them.”

His friend, Thabo Mabuza, completed matric in 2005 and hasn’t had a job since then, despite years of trying. Last Friday afternoon he, Malepe and another friend sat on the logs near the main road, smoking and relaxing in the shade.

Mabuza says that whenever he went around looking for a job, he would be told he doesn’t have the qualifications or the relevant experience.

“They won’t come straight out with it that they want money before they can give you a job, but you know that is what they want,” he claims. Malepe echoes Mabuza’s words.

“If you come with R2 000, you will get a job,” he says.

Last year, Lily Mine allegedly put up a notice at a nearby store that it was looking for 20 people to employ for various jobs on the mine. According to Mabuza and Malepe, more than 100 people showed up.

That indicated just how desperate the job situation in the area was, they say.

Malepe used to live in Burgersfort, between Mpumalanga and Limpopo, but left a few years go to join his mother in Louieville when his stepfather remarried. He didn’t finish school and went only as far as Grade 11.

His mother works on the farms and gets paid R1 800 a month. Malepe says even if he wanted to, he would not be able to afford R2 000 to buy a job.

Another option would be to go to Mbombela, the capital of Mpumalanga, to look for a job. But he would need to spend about R100 on a return trip, and he doesn’t know whether he will come back with a job.

Despite the cave-in at Lily Mine, which saw three employees trapped underground after the container they were working in fell into a sinkhole, Malepe still has his heart set on finding a job at the mine one day.

“What happened at the mine, with regards to the three people who are still trapped underground, cannot make me fear working there. I still want a job.”

“It has been five years that I have been going to the mine office looking for a job and leaving my CV there. But it is painful when you go to their dustbin to find that your CV is one of the many that have been thrown away.”

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Lily Mine spokesperson Coetzee Zietsman says the mine is in a growth and development phase and is committed to employing people from the community.

He says that as its production increases, so will the workforce, and that will have a positive impact on the socio-economic status of the community.

“The mine has on several occasions helped the schools when they asked for help. We maintain the public road, we have built a classroom, supply cleaning materials, sponsor the matric field camp, support the local crèche, and often help with water.

“We take our corporate responsibility very seriously and work closely with the community,” Zietsman adds.

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