'We starved along with the pigs'

Makgotso Vanwyk had no food to give her one-year-old. It seemed the child was always crying, a wail that drifted across the dusty landscape.

Makgotso's husband, Tebogo "Nina" Moekaedi, knew then: they would die here.

It had been nearly two months since their predecessor on the farm, Shadrack, had left. "You're going to suffer here," he warned the couple before making his way down to the big road.

Shadrack said he had worked for three months on the farm and received R800 in payment.

Moekaedi would try anyway. The two months without a job had been tough and he could not continue to rely on his mother's pension to feed him and his family.

He knew Nimrod "Koroba" Tlhoaele, a North West provincial government employee from Mafikeng, and had worked for him before. So when Tlhoaele called and said there was work on Thandi Modise's farm, he immediately made his way to Potchefstroom.

Shadrack had stuck around for a day to show Moekaedi what needed to be done. Let the cattle and goats out to graze. Run the water. "Feed the pigs every second day, otherwise the food won't last," he told him.

Moekaedi settled into the rhythm of farm life, rising when his breath trailed ahead of him and leading the cows back to their kraal when the shadows grew long over the Highveld.

To break his solitude, Moekaedi sent for Vanwyk and his one-year-old, Kekotso.

Tlhoaele delivered a 10kg bag of mealie meal and soap.

The family shared a single bed, going to bed dressed in all their clothes and wrapping the curtains around them to stave off the biting cold.

In the mornings, Moekaedi built a fire to boil water for tea and washing from a 20-litre bucket.

With Kekotso strapped to her back, Vanwyk helped with the running of the farm, cleaning the sties, feeding the pigs and herding the livestock.

As the weeks wore on, not a single visitor arrived. The food began to run out.

"I called Koroba, and he told me to cook once a day and to eat at 12 at night to make the food last," said Moekaedi.

The 30 20-litre bags of pig feed were also running low.

"They [the pigs] started charging me, trying to knock me down. Makgotso and the child couldn't go there any more."

The pigs started dying - five the first day, 10 the next. Tlhoaele told him to throw the dead animals in the pit.

"It was a deep hole. We filled that hole to the top with pigs and cows. I thought then even we are going to die here."

Tlhoaele stopped replying to his please-call-me messages. The family were now living on water alone.

Vanwyk's breast milk had dried up and Kekotso refused to drink the water. "She was crying, always crying."

In desperation, he turned to a neighbouring farmworker, David Masobe, who had seen many of Moekaedi's predecessors - all desperate, few ever getting paid.

He gave the family a small packet of mealie meal and tea. He also gave Moekaedi R5 airtime, with which he phoned his mother.

With the R400 she sent him, 47 days after arriving there, the family left the farm.

Modise mixes up workers, facts in farm scandal

The sole farmworker who took care of National Council of Provinces chairwoman Thandi Modise's farm in North West left the animals to die because he and his family faced starvation if they stayed on the farm.

Modise stated repeatedly this week that her farm manager had left the farm to tend to a family emergency.

A worker indeed left the farm to tend to family business - but that was nearly two months ago.

That worker's successor, Tebogo "Nina" Moekaedi, 27, left the Modderfontein farm on June 28 after not getting paid for nearly two months and having to feed his family through hand-outs.

As the animal feed ran out and the animals began to die, Moekaedi dumped hundreds of dead pigs and cows in a pit.

Modise also said she visited the farm every two weeks, but she had not been seen there in the past two months as Moekaedi tried to maintain the 480ha property, which cost her R4.88-million, financed by a Land Bank loan.

This week, Moekaedi said he, his wife, Makgotso Vanwyk, 19, and their one-year-old daughter nearly starved to death before finally making it off the farm. In the nearly two months he had worked for Modise, he had never been paid.

He and neighbouring farmworker David Masobe said a string of workers, never more than two at a time, worked at the farm for months with the promise of R50 a day. Many had walked away empty-handed, they said.

SPCA inspector Andries Venter said the farm was abandoned when inspectors arrived there on Saturday last week.

They found a pit filled with animal carcasses at such an advanced stage of decomposition that it was impossible to count how many were in it.

Venter said Modise sent a delegation to negotiate with them. "Even the mayor was there," he said.

Kgotso Khumalo, Tlokwe's mayor and a former adviser to Modise, said he had gone to the farm out of concern.

"As the first citizen of this municipality, I always attend areas when there is a disaster. I wanted to see for myself what was going on. I did not go with the lawyer or advocate - I met them there. Yes, I was a political adviser to Thandi Modise, but I was not there as a special favour to her," he said.

Venter said a vet's report would reveal the extent of the animals' starvation. "The bone structure of the animals could be felt through their wool," he said, confirming that there was no feed on the farm.

"Should the matter be heard in the regional court and should the accused be found guilty, the court has the power to fine them up to R300000 and/or 15 years in prison," he said. "The person to be charged at this time is Thandi Modise."

By the SPCA's count, 53 pigs, 19 goats and sheep, one goose and seven chickens were dead when they arrived. A further 107 pigs and 10 goats and sheep were put down.

Moekaedi says there were 845 pigs when he started working at the farm.

A neighbouring farmer alerted the SPCA after he saw cows trying to climb over the electric fence in an attempt to reach water.

The Sunday Times broke the news of Modise's farm last week. Inspectors found abandoned, starving animals. Some pigs had started cannibalising others.

After 47 days on the farm, Moekaedi and his family made their way back to his father-in-law's house on a farm outside Makwassie, 150km away.

Seated in front of their 2m-by-2m room, Moekaedi said he had taken the job at the farm out of desperation and because he believed throughout that a well-known politician such as Modise would pay.

He has tried repeatedly to contact Nimrod "Koroba" Thloaele, who works for the North West human settlements department and initially brought Moekaedi to the farm.

But, said Moekaedi: "Niks [nothing]."

In a statement yesterday afternoon, Modise's spokesman, Neo Moepi, dismissed allegations that farmworkers were ''ill-treated".

Moepi said the reasons for the workers' departure and the cause of a veld fire that cut the water and electricity supply were under investigation by a team appointed by Modise.

''New information suggesting that Modise's detractors visited her Modderfontein farm outside Potchefstroom without her knowledge in the weeks leading to workers abandoning her farm has been referred to her lawyers," he said.

Moepi claimed this new development confirmed there were ''those who had a personal score to settle with her". Beauregard Tromp and Monica Laanparsad