Mineral resourcers – Gqeberha’s secret salt harvesters turn to abandoned pans after losing jobs during pandemic

schumi

schumi

Honorary Master
Joined
Mar 26, 2010
Messages
25,085
People who lost their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic have found another way to put food on the table, although it has elicited a warning from the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality

BeyondWords

Melikhaya Sonca from Motherwell in Gqeberha left school in Grade 10 to start working because his parents could not afford to provide for him and his six siblings.

Since then, 30-year-old Sonca has relied on piece jobs to survive. When the pandemic hit in 2020, and jobs were scarce, a friend told him about harvesting salt from the abandoned salt pans just outside Motherwell.

Sonca is now one of dozens of people who harvest and sell the salt to local informal traders. They use a shovel to break the hard top layer and scoop out the salt using the shovel or their bare hands. A square metre can yield several bags of salt. The water is no more than 20cm deep and is surrounded by thick shrubs and prickly pears.

The salt pans where Sonca and others work are about 10km south of Motherwell, spanning an area the size of about six rugby fields. Not all the pans have matured salt, some have a red layer that cannot be harvested. A perennial stream flows into the pans from the Swartkops River.

When we asked the municipality and salt-producing companies in the area, no one accepted responsibility for the pans. We first contacted Cerebos in Gqeberha. We were told the company had not owned the abandoned salt pans.

We were then referred to Marina Sea Salt. We spoke to a person who identified themselves as SS Dandala, compliance and liaison director of Swartkops Sea Salt, a manufacturer of Marina Sea Salt products. “We can categorically state that the company or anyone affiliated to it has never owned, nor used or controlled any salt-producing pans around Motherwell,” said Dandala.
Click to expand...

More at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/art...ecret-salt-harvesters-turn-to-abandoned-pans/
 
konfab

konfab

Honorary Master
Joined
Jun 23, 2008
Messages
36,120
Hemps said:
"his six siblings"

problem right there.
Click to expand...

I am currently in car buying mode, and when I read your post, the first thing that came to my mind was: "how the hell would you transport that many kids?".

One of the reasons why I think middle class people have less children is simply the fact that most cars do not come with enough seats to carry that many children. But when you are poor and can't afford a car, you don't have to worry about how you are going to move them around.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top