South Africans are lazy – Giyani acting mayor

“THE most problematic thing in South Africa is the feeling of entitlement… people don’t want to work, they want free things delivered to them on a platter because they feel they deserve it.”

These are the words of Greater Giyani acting mayor, Million Rikhotso, who spoke in Ngove village during the re-launch of phase two of the Vangama cooperative project, which was established by the Ifa Lethu agency in the village in 2011 to empower unemployed people with practical skills.

The cooperative consists of 15 members who do woodcarving, beadwork, make jewellery, among others. When the project started in 2011, the members were trained on skills development, and later in phase two, they were trained on how to access the market to sell their products.

Rikhotso told the owners of the project not to rely on assistance from donors, but to stand up and manage the project on their own with the few resources they had.

“If you look at the taxi drivers and the farmers, you’ll realise that those people don’t cry much about receiving aid, they just wake up and go to work,” he said, adding that they only “cried” about bad roads.

“They create means to survive on their own even without the government’s subsidy,” he said.

Rikhotso warned that if the nation continued to live with the attitude of not wanting to work, the country could end up being led by foreigners.

“Today if you look at the young people who trade in our towns, you’ll realise that they either come from Zimbabwe or Mozambique.

“Our children are nowhere to be seen because they are lazy and want free stuff,” he said.

He emphasised that although government would assist, the cooperative should learn to generate money on its own.

Pat Motshweneng, the project manager from Ifa Lethu said the project was targeting information centres and lodges around the Giyani Municipality as their main markets.

“However, we appeal to all stakeholders including the municipality to help them access those markets in order to help them to grow bigger,” he said.

Speaking on behalf of Hosi Ngove, Raymond Mavunda, the secretary of the Mavunda royal family said if well marketed, the project could do more than just create jobs, saying it would also help keep the village clean.

“These people are very talented in the sense that they can take an ordinary bottle that you find in the street and turn it into something else that people could buy. This means that if it was well marketed, we would not find a bottle scattered around here,” he said, urging the Giyani Municipality to help market the project.