The Tragic events of 2012, which left 44 men dead, were put aside as Marikana community celebrated the opening of a Lonmin mine-sponsored school.
Lonmin PLC’s chief executive, Ben Magara, whom the North West mining community viewed as a villain during the 2012 wildcat strike by mine workers, received hugs and admiration from the locals who attended the official opening of Marikana Primary School on Friday.
Lonmin had donated the 17-classroom school, which cost around R17million. The school, which used to be a farm school until 2001, when its structure collapsed, had been joined to an adjacent high school as a combined school.
Welhemina Mosome, the chairperson of the school’s new governing body, said the community of Marikana was slowly starting to unite.
“Although we have not forgotten the events of 2012, we don’t want that tragedy to hold us back as a community.
“Lonmin is starting to gain our trust, and we are now working together to build a better Marikana,” she said
In August 2012, police clashed with Lonmin employees who were on a wage strike and, as a result, 34 mineworkers and 10 police officers and security guards lost their lives. The incident, and other major events that followed, such as assassinations of union members, cast a dark cloud over Marikana.
“Halala Marikana, halala!” roared Magara as he took to the podium, followed by cheers from the crowd.
“Who would have thought that today we would be celebrating Marikana’s success after what we went through,” said Magara. “(The year) 2012 was a sad tragedy that Lonmin wants to use to become a catalyst of change. We want to make sure that something like that never happens again. We are proud that Marikana is rising and shining. There is renewed hope and we want to be part of that change,” he added.
Lonmin has been mining in Marikana for 50 years, and despite the company spending over R130m in social projects in the past two financial years, Marikana still lags behind in having proper sanitation, roads and houses, among other things. The few schools in the area still cannot accommodate all the children from the community.
“We are happy with the new school, but we still don’t have a computer laboratory and the administration is not fully equipped, because teachers still struggle to print. They share equipment with the high school which previously accommodated this school. The parents can only do so much, because they also rely on social grants or the little salary they get from mines,” said Mosome.
Marikana Primary School had 300 pupils when it was merged with the high school in 2001.
“That meant that the school had a total of over 700 pupils and 12 classrooms. It was congested and not conducive for learning. We got additional classrooms and the number of pupils escalated to 1600. It stayed congested until we got relief in January, when Lonmin finished building this new school,” Marumo Moeng, acting principal for both schools, said.
The new school has 16 class-rooms for 747 pupils. Its hall can accommodate 900 people and each block has its own ablution facilities. The school was a project by Lonmin together with the North West department of education and sports development.
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