Malamulele: learners to enter the classroom for the 1st time this year

MALAMULELE – LEARNERS from over 140 schools in the Malamulele area will this week attend school for the first time this year.

This follows after the Malamulele task team, which represented the community, announced that the total shutdown under which Malamulele had been for most of the year, had been lifted.

The shutdown was in protest against not being allowed to have their own municipality.

The decision to suspend the shutdown of Malamulele came after the task team, which represented the community, concluded a closed meeting with stakeholders on Monday.

“We hereby announce that we’re suspending the shutdown until further notice, while we further engage with the

Municipal Demarcation Board (MDB) on the issue of municipal demarcation,” Malamulele task team deputy secretary, Ike Nukeri, said.

He indicated that the shutdown of Malamulele should be suspended to allow engagement processes around demarcation issues in Malamulele to continue between the task team and the MDB.

Over the past few weeks, cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister, Pravin Gordhan, visited the area and participated in discussions.

He explained that the government was in the process of liquidating municipalities that were not financially viable in the country, including Mutale, Makhado and Musina in the Vhembe district.

The task team was given an option to submit recommendations and reasons to the MDB within 21 days to support why Malamulele should be given its own stand-alone municipality.

These recommendations would be considered when the unviable municipalities had been closed.

Nukeri said the reopening of Malamulele not only meant that learners would be able to go to school, but also that traffic concestion in Giyani would be eased as people from Malamulele had been forced to do all their shopping and other business in Giyani.

“I’m happy that for the first time in nearly a month, I will be able to have tea with fresh bread in the morning,” Jeffrey Sithole, a resident of Section-A in Malamulele said.

“Shopping had become quite a problem. We had to take a taxi to Gyiani, which is 40km away from here, just to buy bread and other small items,” he said.

Malamulele six-week long protest is over

Protest over, but Malamulele pupils miss out