Father grieves loss of only son
“I want to whole of Northwest to know what’s going on. My son is known as Tsekiso Motiti. They must know his name,” Tsekiso says.
Tsekiso Motiti, a father in Ikageng, grieves the loss of his eight-year-old son on 21 January due to drowning in a pit hole. Tsekiso states that his son was not the first accident, a 14-year-old boy drowned in the pit hole on 15 January, a week before his son would.
“We call it the Sarafina Pit hole,” Tsekiso explains while telling the heartbreaking tale of his son’s passing. “A school was being built and they dug pit holes to get G5 soil for the building process. After the building process was finished, the pit holes were left open. They did not rehabilitate the area or closed off the pit holes.”
“I still remember that day. I was at work when a woman phoned me and told me to come to the pit hole,” Tsekiso recounts. “I told the principle (Tsekiso works at De Wilge High School) and she took me here. When I got there, there was no safe guard there, there was no municipality vehicles there. I got into the pit hole and I realized that I can’t feel the ground. After about three hours divers and the municipality came.”
Tsekiso indicates that the school, which is completed but entirely deserted, does not have a name and is not being used. “This is the school that took our sons,” Tsekiso cries out. “It is not even being used. Our children must suffer and go to school from twelve to five while there is a school here. I want to know why this school is not being used. This school that killed my son, why is it not being used to help our kids?” Tsekiso asks.
“I am here in so much pain and suffering for my son, I am hurting inside. When I think about it I just want to cry,” Tsekiso says and stares out in front of him.
Tsekiso further says that the Mayor and Speaker of JB Marks municipality visited him the day after the incident and came to the funeral a week later. “They promised to come back so that we can talk about it, but until now, nine months later, they still did not come.
At the pit holes Tsekiso points out that an attempt was made to fill up one of the pit holes with waste, but that the deepest one is still open. “It is filled with water and it is a danger to our kids,” Tsekiso claims. “Now when it is hot our kids want to go swim there, but it is not safe for them.” Tsekiso states that he was told to take the invoice of his son’s funeral to the municipality, but that it is yet to be paid. “It’s not even about the money,” Tsekiso says. “I don’t care about the money. I fear for the other parents. Look how many kids are here, I fear for their safety because they are just kids.”
Tsekiso admits that he got angry at the mayor, “I asked him, ‘When you come home, who runs to you first?’ He said, ‘My son’, I said to him ‘I don’t have a son anymore.”
“I have a one-year-old daughter, she doesn’t know what happened. I fear for the day when she points to the picture of her brother and asks who it is. Then I will have to tell her about the useless municipality that killed her brother,” Tsekiso says with pain lining his features.
“I want to whole of Northwest to know what’s going on. My son is known as Tsekiso Motiti. They must know his name,” Tsekiso says.
*JB Marks Municipality could not be reached for commentary.
