14 Jan 2021

Farmers at Phakwe cattle post want their settlement to be recognised as a village.

The residents believe that their numbers could fulfill the required 500 people needed for a settlement to be declared a village.

In addition to the numbers, the residents also claimed legitimate expectations since government had been providing them with services such as health, water and that they were allowed to cast their votes from their settlement.

In addition, those with financial muscle were allowed to bury their dead at their ancestral land, a gesture denied to those who depended on social workers. They claimed that the poor were forced to bury their dead in Tsetsebjwe, 20km away.

Their contention was that they could not bury their dead at Tsetsebjwe where they neither had plots nor houses.

In their call for recognition, Phakwe residents accused Tsetsebjwe dikgosi and Bobonong Sub-land Board of conniving to oppress them.

Speakers after another read underhand tactics from dikgosi and sub land board despite being informed that the two institutions bore no powers of recognising the cattle post into a village.

In their quest for recognition as a village, residents even threatened to boycott the 2024 elections as a move to send a strong message to government.

The residents also complained that Water Utilities Corporation officials had informed them that the corporation could not bowse them potable water since they were not a recognised settlement.

To this, the residents sought to be allowed to drill a syndicate borehole for watering selves and livestock.

However, they were informed that the syndicate borehole would have to conform to the requirements of being six kilometers apart from other boreholes.

Though in support of his electorate’s agitation for recognition, area MP, Mr Taolo Lucas absolved sub-land board and dikgosi from frustrating Phakwe residents’ efforts towards recognition.

He said they were implementers of the laws and policies.

“It is the law that renders it difficult for you to be declared a village,” said Mr Lucas.

He said that it was only in Parliament that laws were made, amended and repealed.

However, the area MP stated that it had always been the wish of all the past Parliamentary representatives of the region to get Phakwe recognised as a village, but numbers frustrated them.

Though he called for patience in resolving the matter and getting to the required 500, MP Lucas warned against recruiting and picketing people into the settlement. ENDS