Attie Gumede started working at the Clover cheese factory in Lichtenburg, North West, in 2008, slowly carving out a life for his family in the town he was born in.
The prospect of losing it all this week hit home when Clover announced on Tuesday that it was moving SA’s biggest cheese factory to Queensburgh, Durban.
It said in a statement: “For years the Lichtenburg factory has been experiencing water and power outages, and the surrounding infrastructure has not been maintained by the municipality … The issues have not been resolved. It is no longer feasible for the business to operate in Lichtenburg.”
Without Clover it will be a ghost town — nobody’s going to invest here
— Johannes Schreuder Lichtenburg sheriff of the court
It did not respond to further queries.
“It’s very bad,” Gumede told the Sunday Times.
“People actually want to move with the factory, but it’s not easy with the salary. I earn R7,000 — and then I have to pay R2,000 for accommodation in Durban. I have children in school — and with Covid that’s expensive, and I must look after my parents. There will be nothing left to eat. I don’t know what I’m going to do after this. If they don’t raise the salaries I can’t move and I am out of a job. It’s a big, big problem for me now.”
Themba Davis, who has worked for the company for about 12 years, said he is very comfortable living off what he earns, but if he went to Durban he would be alone and visits from the city to see his family would be unaffordable.
“We were told that retrenchments would take place [in October] across the whole country. We will suffer if we go to Durban without a raise and we will suffer if we stay here.”
On Thursday, North West premier Job Mokgoro sent a team led by agriculture & rural development MEC Desbo Mohono to meet with Clover in an effort to halt the relocation, but the company’s decision remains unchanged.
At stake are the jobs of about 380 permanent and 40 temporary employees, 20 general employees and 20 truck drivers.
“Please help us,” a milk truck driver shouted as he slowly drove his 33,000l tanker past, splashing through mud that was once tarred over on Van Aswegen Street.
He’d just turned the corner from Jacob Street, where the Clover cheese factory has stood for more than 50 years.
• 63 - The number of municipalities in financial distress
• 40 - Municipalities are having financial and service delivery crises
• 102 - Municipalities adopted budgets they cannot finance
— In Numbers
"I’m losing my job. I have children. People can’t let Clover close, we are suffering,” he said.
Ditsobotla municipality spokesperson Pius Batsile said in a statement: “Mayor Tsholofelo Moreo has noted with great concern reports that Clover will be relocating. Moreo says the reasons cited by Clover for its departure are misleading and devoid of truth, to say the least.”
He wanted it on record that Clover got its electricity from Eskom and not the municipality.
Service delivery has ground to a halt as ANC factions fight for control of the municipality, with Moreo and Tebogo Buthelezi both claiming to be the mayor.
The council removed Buthelezi by a vote of no confidence on December 10 last year, the Sunday Times reported at the time.
Moreo was voted in as the new mayor, but Buthelezi went to court and won reinstatement, only to be removed by the ANC caucus through another motion of no confidence, after which Moreo was reinstated.
Sheriff of the court Johannes Schreuder’s office is on Van Aswegen Street, which he calls “the tyre hotel” because “once the tyre goes in the pothole it stays there”.
He said taps run dry daily from 9am to 5pm and there are areas in the town that go for six days without electricity.
Waste is removed twice a month for those who are lucky, but the roads this week were garbage-free as the community had made donations to the municipality to fix the refuse trucks.
When Schreuder first arrived in 1997, the town was bustling.
“Around 2009 the town started to go quiet. People are leaving because of municipal mismanagement and the two mayors fighting for control. Factories have also laid people off, dairy farms are closing down — all those labourers are losing their jobs. Without Clover it will be a ghost town — nobody’s going to invest here because there are no services.”
Dairy farmer Johan Strydom produces 12,000l of milk a day for Clover from a herd of 400 cows.
His is one of 23 dairy farms in the area. Once the factory closes, his produce will go to Gaborone, Botswana.
If neighbouring farms which share the cost of a milk tanker close, he would need to produce more to pay for the transport of the milk.
“So there are cost implications for farmers and the smaller farms may not survive,” said Strydom, who also cited water shortages.
“Five years ago Clover started collecting water from the borehole on my farm when there wasn’t sufficient supply from the municipality,” he said.
David Tumisang works for the municipality delivering water, making six trips a day to the town reservoir, Lichtenburg and the townships of Blyderville and Boikhutso.
“I work overtime because I live in this community and I don’t like to see people suffer.”
With just three working trucks, residents often wait five days between deliveries.
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