Minister pays homage to Madiba’s birthplace, assesses local projects
Mandla Mandela urges Didiza to revive brickmaking site
Great SA leaders like Nelson Mandela should not only live on in books — their legacies should be visible in the daily lives of people in the rural areas where they were born.
This was said by agriculture, land reform and rural development minister Thoko Didiza during a visit to the icon’s birth village of Mvezo near Mthatha on Monday.
Didiza, who met the late statesman’s eldest grandson and head of the Mandela royal family, Mandla Mandela, was shown several state projects recently undertaken to uplift the people of Mvezo and neighbouring Ludondolo village.
Though Mvezo falls under the KSD municipality in the OR Tambo district, Ludondolo is in Amathole’s jurisdiction.
Didiza toured the garden of remembrance, the 10km Mvezo-Ludondolo access road linking the two villages to the N2 and the R127m iNkosi Dalibhunga Mandela legacy bridge launched by then-president Jacob Zuma in 2013.
Mandla, an ANC MP, told Didiza that a brick-manufacturing site in Ludondolo, set up by WBHO, had once created many jobs for people of the two villages, including the youth and disabled.
The bricks were used to pave the 10km stretch linking the villages to the N2.
Didiza said the link road and the garden of remembrance connected the villages to KSD and OR Tambo municipality as well as the Amathole district.
She said this epitomised the life of Mandela. “Through his work, he was able to connect not only South Africans, but also SA to Africa and the whole world. For me it is an important moment to be in his birthplace and see where he walked, where he played, where he looked after animals as a young boy and where he cut his political teeth.”
Didiza said the OR Tambo and Amathole regions had produced some the most outstanding leaders of the liberation movement, including OR Tambo and Govan Mbeki.
“What is important now is what can we do as SA so that their memory lives not only in the books but in the daily lives of their people, so that we can say, ‘it is through them that we have seen what it is to be free’.”
She praised former rural development and land reform minister Gugile Nkwinti and former Eastern Cape premier Noxolo Kiviet for their role in initiating community development projects in Mvezo and Ludondolo. “What is important for me here is how these projects were done, involving the communities in taking part in their own development.
“It talks to ownership, which must be encouraged.”
On the multimillion-rand bridge, Mandla said many people, especially women, had drowned trying to cross the Mbhashe River, which separates Mvezo and Ludondolo.
He urged Didiza to assist in reviving the brick manufacturing project, saying some machines had been stripped of crucial parts, and piles of damaged bags of cement were lying on site. Didiza said the site would have to be properly fenced first.
She said her department was not finished with projects in Mvezo and was looking at implementing phase 3 of the access road, which would link Mvezo and Ludondolo to Elliotdale.