Political expedience is the final
Health problems are just one of the difficulties faced by people living right next to an open-cast coal mine in Mpumalanga
Nomfundo Nxumalo says she sometimes experiences electric shocks from her washing line and that the clothes need another scrub if they are not brought inside when it gets windy.
Her laundry hangs almost directly under the crackling electricity wires that undulate out of the nearby Duvha power station south of Emalahleni in Mpumalanga. And the black mounds of Eyethu Coal’s open-cast mining operation are less than 50m from her backyard — listless, and ready to dance a dervish twirl with the wind.
When the wind blows, the coal dust consumes the houses that border the mine. This is one of the most polluted parts of the country, according to a 2017 Centre for Environmental Rights report, and would appear to be unsafe for the raising of children, such as her niece, Nomvula, who is just a few months old.
With the rest of her family, 22-year-old Nxumalo moved from KwaZulu-Natal to their house in the informal township of Masakhane in Emalahleni’s ward 19 in 2006. Her father had found employment as a truck driver.
Nxumalo says she has been suffering from chest problems for the past four years. “I can’t walk long distances, I can’t run and I have a shortness of breath.”
She had never previously experienced respiratory problems and is unsure of its causes, but it has not been diagnosed. “I have been to the clinic but, you know, they just give you Panados and send you home,” says Nxumalo, whose mother is in the nearby Impungwe Hospital with tuberculosis.
Health problems are just one of many experienced by the Masakhane residents — people have no running water, no electricity and no flushing toilets, and they increasingly have to navigate local politics where selfenrichment seems more important than community development.
The Masakhane informal settlement is about five decades older than Eyethu’s Mooifontein colliery, which it adjoins.
There is no significant buffer zone between the mine and the people. There is only a shallow trench separating Masakhane and the shiny, crow-black scar of extraction. Welltrodden pathways lead up to the colliery’s top, where heavy machinery and vehicles rake coal around an oily lake of lurid greens and oranges.
The homes were initially built on farmland by labourers and the area was known as Sbhamu — for the guns the farmer used to carry. Unlike so many other South African informal settlements, most of the houses are built with bricks, which are cheaply available from, or cast away by, the nearby Corobrik factory.
Masakhane is in the heart of what is known as the “energy Mecca of South Africa”. Coal deposits proliferate in the area and three other nearby power stations, Kendal, Matla and Ga-Nala, feed into the country’s grid. A fifth, Kusile, is being built close by.
“This is where electricity comes from — it goes right above our heads — but unfortunately we don’t get any of it,” says Elizabeth Motloung.
It is April this year. Anger and irritation charge her lament.
Motloung runs the local Thusanang day-care centre to which the elderly also come for assistance. She is a no-nonsense person who likes to get things done, and usually does, whether it is demanding sincere community engagement from the nearby industries or a swift calculation of heads and pizza slices to feed hungry activists at a meeting.
The 42-year-old Motloung remembers arriving in Masakhane 11 years ago, “after following my heart here” from Johannesburg and being confronted by the lack of electricity.
“I was furious with people and couldn’t understand why they had not illegally connected to the domestic power lines that you see there.” She points to electricity running to a nearby tavern and bottle store.
“People in Jo’burg would have done it one time; here they are scared. If we did, Eskom would have come running to provide us with electricity by now,” she says with an impish smirk.
It is September, and Motloung is irrepressible. “We are getting electricity,” she exclaims, “and directly from Eskom.”
The day before, the power utility had agreed to make provision to electrify Masakhane in its 2019-2020 budget.
The agreement with Eskom is a victory for Motloung and other local activists, who have continually approached industries in the area for social projects, with varying degrees of success.
Sometimes the residents of Masakhane are able to negotiate essentials, such as the provision of electricity or a stay of eviction from what is now Eyethu’s land. At other times, the “companies just give us things that we don’t need or haven’t asked for on [Nelson] Mandela Day and then get us to smile with