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WATCH: NOTHING'S CHANGED IN MARIKANA!

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Pumza Makaula of Marikana
Pumza Makaula of Marikana
Jan Right

Pumza Makaula said unlike other residents, she is not scared to speak out on social issues affecting her community.

Makaula of Nkaneng informal settlement in Rustenburg said their lives have not changed since the Marikana Massacre, despite government and Lonmin promising to change their lives for the better.

She said the promises to better their lives were never fulfilled.

"We are living in squalor and we still use pit toilets,"  she said.

Makaula told Daily Sun that she can't use the toilet when it's raining because it floods.

"We are all South Africans and I voted, so why is it that there is no service delivery in our section," she said.

Pumza lives in a small one-roomed shack with two children and she is unemployed.

She survives on the Social Development grant she receives for her two kids, which is not enough.

According to Pumza people in the area are scared to speak up on the social issues affecting them.

Lonmin committed to constructing 5 500 houses for its workers in its Social and Labour Plan by the year 2011.

But this has not happened, according to local residents.

Residents said they are angry because Lonmin is currently building flats, which will be rented out for R1300 a month.

This, they said, will not benefit the poor.

The Bench Marks Foundation, which is looking for justice for the survivors of the massacre, argued in the Marikana Commission of Inquiry that the benefits of mining in the area are not reaching the workers and the surrounding communities.

Lack of employment opportunities for the youth and the growing inequalities have contributed to the shocking living conditions.


Pumza Makaula in her one-roomed shack.
Pumza Makula
Pumza Makaula
Stinking kak
Kids playing in shocking conditions
Kids play in shocking conditions.
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