Miners deserve ownership stake

Opportunities in the former Transkei were very thin on the ground. For someone with a matric certificate, you could become a nurse, a cop or a clerk. Educated ones were teachers.

Then you had a group of young people who were destined for lives in the mines. The Employment Bureau of Africa (Teba) offices had long queues of young hopefuls hoping to make it to the mines.

This was at a time when some families saw no value in sending kids to school. Boys were earmarked for chores like cattle herding and ploughing mealie fields.

Girls did house chores and some families believed sending girls to school was pointless as they would grow up, get married and become someone else’s responsibility.

Boys destined to be miners were only sent to school relatively older and the aim was for them to learn just enough to be able to write letters home while working in the mines.

These are the same people who are now struggling to make ends meet. They retire to poverty and others are forced to retire if they get injured at work and generally get very little money.

I would have loved the Mining Charter to consider them more than anybody else. The mining industry exploited them. I would love that the bulk percentage of ownership earmarked for blacks would go to current and former miners. That way, we can go a long way in addressing the exploitation of our people.

I don’t care who else benefits, as long as people on the frontline are the primary beneficiaries.

Richardson Mzaidume

Pimville