Over 200 people lost their homes, two were reported dead, while one remains missing despite efforts from residents, the government and the municipality to recover the missing body.   

The mayor of the troubled Kopanong Local Municipality, Xolani Tseletsele, said the municipality has been experiencing challenges while they have been trying to resuscitate the homes of Jagersfontein victims. They, however, recently received a report from the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC), an entity of Human Settlements. 

He explained that the report revealed about 22 houses in the Itumeleng area of the Shothi location have to be rebuilt from scratch. Other houses only require renovations. 

In Charlesville, 19 houses also have to be rebuilt. This is because many victims are still displaced and stay in private accommodation while others stay in residences hired by the mine. Residents have criticised the provincial government and municipality for their slow-paced efforts in assisting the community to restore their lives.

“Our approach to this issue is that the mine should take full responsibility in the rebuilding of those houses, and they have already started to build at least three show houses. However, the show houses already belong to the affected families – the Lebona family, the Saola family, as well as other families. There are about three houses that are being built. They started to build in December, but we are still waiting for another report from the Environmental Health Division to give us a report in terms of the environment where the houses were destroyed,” he said.

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Tseletsele detailed that they will also initiate a meeting with mine representatives to discuss the time frame for the completion of the houses that are already being built for the victims. He lashed out at provincial Human Settlements officials who were supposed to engage with residents on the report on Tuesday but cancelled the meeting.

“We are going to change our tone from now on to ensure that they take full responsibility as the government to come and explain these things to our people. We can’t be left alone as the municipality, or as ward councillors, on these issues because we said we are going to assist the affected families and therefore we need to be consistent in that. It's totally unacceptable to have a report that is produced almost two weeks ago and the owners of the report are unavailable to come and explain it to the community – why these houses are relocated, or why these houses are renovated,” he added.

Tseletsele further stated that his team is already on the ground, working on the sites that are going to be allocated to victims.  

OFM News