By: Mandla Nyaqela
I was excited just like every unemployed South African who’s trying to make ends by providing for his family when I was called for the training course of being a Crime Prevention Warden officer in my ward.
I believe I speak for many when I say that the 666 job creation program by the Premier of Gauteng Panyaza Lesufi is just a public relations campaign for elections next year and, afterwards most people will lose jobs again and remain unemployed after voting.
I am one of the 6000 people who were sent to Castle in Bush camp in Cullinan on the outskirts of Pretoria to go and train for a Crime Prevention Warden officer programme. All we did there was aerobics and running while the camp was not a safe place to live as more than 20 people were forced to share in an eight meters long containers. We drank water from boreholes and there was a serious scarcity of the very same unhealthy water we drank and showered with. The water was always cold and it was very hard to take a shower as it is winter. The was a scarcity of food and the very food was never properly prepared. There are people who were rushed to clinics because of food poisoning and they developed sores. There are people who got sick and they were sent back home and we later received the news that some passed on. The area was also full of venomous snakes. We were verbally abused and insulted by senior officers from the Department of Community Safety in Gauteng/ Gauteng Traffic Police to be precise. People would collapse at parade and get rushed to the nearest clinic.
A week before pass out I needed to go to court and I asked for a permission. The court date was then postponed from the 23 to the 31 May. I did not have the means to go back to the camp and back to Johannesburg to attend to my case and I was not furnished with any contacts, so I waited for the 31st of May to attend and all charges were withdrawn against me and I was to prepare going back to Cullinan to resume my training, but on the same day I received an audio message from one of guys we were training with that everyone is removed from the camp until further notice.
I was told to liase with a new captain who was nominated from us as the new trainees and I did so. He advised me to liase with one of the senior military personnel who was training us at the camp and he never responded to my messages and a few days later our captain sent me a list of all the people who needed to go to the office and sign up contract for training to resume here in Johannesburg.
I went and signed my contract and got added into a whatsapp group for updates. On our very first training in Diepkloof at Fons Luminis Secondary school I was illtreated by a female white afrikaner senior officer from the Gauteng Traffic Police who was very rude, racist and with a foul attitude. She sent me away and demanded that my name, surname and ID number be struck off the system after making fun of my surname. She also accused me of having absconded. She earlier told us that at parade we must not scratch our private parts, poke our big noses and ears. For me that was the highest form of racism, but none of us commented as there would not be anyone available to defend us with regards to the abuse we endured at the Castle in Bush camp in Cullinan.
I remain unemployed and at home since, and I do not know what my fate is in the Department of Community Safety. I have volunteered for years on the ground in my community without getting a penny under the Community Policing Forum because I am passionate about the fight against crime. I am a trained security guard with a cash-in-transit special skill security training, a firearm competency and business purpose and a driver’s license and I was grateful for finally getting the opportunity to secure employment in order for me to be able to provide for my Family.
I’m writing this letter with a heavy heart and I would like our fellow South Africans should know the truth about the 666 job creation programme before the national government elections in South Africa.
