Looking back at the mining industry in South Africa, one has to ask the question of, “How much of the black southern Africa labour was exploited for at least 200 years by this industry?”
In Lesotho and Transkei the cycle took a particular cycle of its participants being selected out of a stock of people who would attend school up to possibly Standard Three, then go to the mountain where one qualified for manhood and by the age of 18 they are ripe to enrol for a mine. After four years of the routine they are ready to build a family and mining becomes their working life.
Many contracted occupational diseases and got disabling injuries for life. Many had terminated contracts with benefits stuck in The Employment Bureau of Africa (TEBA), the Native Recruiting Corporation and insurance as well as member provident funds. Figures close to R 50 billion are held up in trust by insurance companies of these souls from the SADC states and homelands of South Africa who did so much in building the economy of this once economic giant of the continent.
In my career at the department of labour in Lesotho, we kept a record of the recruits to the mines by their village and district of origin. The district that had the highest number of mine recruits was my district of Mafeteng, colloquially referred to as Makaota.
It is also a district that is worst hit by the closure of the mines and the social ills of people whose working life was interrupted. The children of these migrant labourers and their sending areas are so impoverished while tons of accumulated funds are being sweated by hands that are undeserving.
I was back in Lesotho over the weekend to perform post-burial rites after a mandatory month of mourning. We had a good recollection and reminisced about our village with my two elder brothers and the topic focused on Ntate Khofu Thomas Bohloko, a career miner of note and a bachelor of record.
Khofu in English is a caterpillar and his life Ntate Khofu was a caterpillar.
His speciality in his lifetime mining career was pushing the underground hopper called kokopane in Sesotho. His build of broad shoulders, a tough short neck and his well-built arms qualified him as one fit for purpose in mining. His head was shaped like an axe and he had bloodshot eyes from a uniquely Khofu practice.
It is said there would be times when Khofu would be livid and at that point he would block traffic underground by stubbornly standing in the rail and nothing could move. He would then praise sing himself as Khofu Mojela of Makaoteng. Mojela is the Chief of the Makaota people and Khofu pledged his allegiance that way.
Every Christmas Khofu, like everyone else, would come back home to complement the apartheid design of half production and reproduction of his life to subsidise the modern mining sector in the gold fields with agricultural activities in his sending village. Khofu was not only a spectacle at the mines, he was one such in Patisi, where we all came from. He would spend his homecoming period doing two things.
First, he would join all others in mowing wheat in work parties, and his speciality was loading the bushels eight at a time under his strong arms with his naked top. The spikes on wheat straws had no effect on his tough body.
On days when there was no work, Khofu Mojela would imbibe home brew from morning to sunset. He would place a 20 litre home brew in the middle of the village and start a conversation with the universe for the whole day. He would with open eyes look into the sunrays for minutes at length while moving his arms in artistic gestures that engaged the sun.
He would walk around the container of alcohol in style, dipping the calabash and with grace first looking into the sun rays and then imbibing the homebrew. He was a spectacle to watch when he walked. He would hasten his pace with a sudden stop. He never walked straight, but he would meander around in measured steps and with a burst of energy he would much forward. As children we adopted his style of walking and competed over who best resembles his art.
I do not recall Khofu sustaining any conversation except with himself. He spent all his life of work as a miner. He had neither wife nor children. He did not have a house either and stayed with his late brother’s family. Once on a cold night in his drunken stupor he put his leg into a bonfire and claimed that he was God and God does not burn. The poor mortal had his leg roasted. The next day he could not recall about what happened.
Khofu Mojela of Makaoteng finally passed on having spent almost 40 years of his work life on the mines. But he sadly died a pauper.
The question to ask is, “Given that neither the individuals who worked on the mines, nor their relatives can be traced, why is the money not directed to sending areas and deploy this as part of a package for financing development?” This it appears is the least that can be done to acknowledge and save the legacy of Khofu Mojela of Makaoteng as one who poured his all when it came to the mining industry.
Dr Pali Lehohla is a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa
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