'It's like a desert' - Residents protest in village that everyone forgot

01 March 2017 - 17:43 By Boitumelo Tshehle
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
Image: Gallo Images/iStockphoto

North West residents barricaded roads with burning tyres and objects on Wednesday‚ demanding improved medical emergency services‚ a library and a petrol station at their village.

Makgobistad residents woke up at 3am and blocked the roads preventing nurses‚ police and ordinary people who travel on the road to pass.

They said they wanted the local mayor to swiftly address their demands.

The residents want an ambulance at their village.

They said shortage of nurses at their clinic was also a problem and that most of the time the clinic runs without a nurse.

Residents said the clinic closes at 4pm and always runs out of medication.

They also want library that was completed seven years ago to be opened.

Residents also complained that the water tanker truck operators sell them the water that the municipality gives them for free.

There is a fuel station at the village that was constructed by the Ratlou local municipality but has been closed for over ten years. They said that for motorists at their village to get petrol‚ one has to travel for 61 kilometers to Mahikeng.

Community leader Themba Marose said they wanted to be treated like other South African residents.

“It's like we are in a desert‚ no one cares about us.

“Today we wanted to show government that we are alive irrespective of the cruel treatment they are giving us‚” he said.

Marose said no one will go to work and no motorist will use the road that passes through their village until Ratlou local municipality mayor Tebogo Modise answers their demands.

Police are monitoring the situation.

- TMG Digital/SowetanLIVE

subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now