MBOMBELA – After the provincial chairperson of the House of Traditional Leaders, Kgoshi Lameck Mokoena sent a stern warning on several occasions to people conducting illegal initiation schools during this winter season, it seemed it was heeded, save for a few.
This publication learnt that recently four people were arrested when it was discovered that they had been running illegal initiation schools at Masoyi and Gutjwa.
The arrest came after the owners of the schools failed to comply with the Ingoma Act and therefore the schools were shut down after MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta), Ms Refilwe Mtshweni instructed law-enforcement agencies to do so.
Mokoena stated that shutting down the illegal schools showed that they were determined as a house to do away with illegal initiation schools.
“I can say that shutting down the illegal schools is a positive move to tackle the issue of illegal initiation schools being used as a way to make easy money while it’s a culture that needs to be respected”.
He added, “As a house in the province we are very happy that we didn’t experience any causalities this year.
“We have managed to achieve that because there’s a task team that was responsible to visit all the initiations schools on a daily basis, to ensure that everything went smoothly and they complied with the Ingoma Acts, and we were also working as a team with the police and department of health.”
Mokoena said that those arrested were going to face the music.
“We are not going to have mercy, they will get what they deserve as we want to teach them a lesson that they will never forget. We don’t want bad publicity because of people who don’t listen and respect our culture,” he explained.
Mpumalanga News learnt that by this time in 2013, the province was making headlines due to the increasing number of young boys who had lost their lives at illegal initiation schools.
“We are not going to allow history to repeat itself. We are going to continue to work tirelessly to uproot illegal schools,” he concluded.
