R780k donkey carts project looks like ‘a money-making scam’

In a move last week reminiscent of former health minister Zweli Mkhize’s scooter “ambulances”, the North West’s department of community safety and transport management handed over animal-drawn carts to 20 households from Dibono and Manawana villages, outside Mahikeng.

This sparked a social media furore, with people criticising the department’s project.

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Political analyst Dr Metji Makgoba, from the University of Limpopo, said MEC of community safety and transport management Sello Lehari was being disrespectful to the two communities which received the carts.

Scoring a quick buck and disrespect to community

“This project looks like a scam where the MEC and his cronies just found a way of making a few bucks from the public purse.

“The donkeys as a means of transport is outdated and backward. It is quite clear that Lehari is disrespectful towards those two communities.

“This cannot be implemented as an institutional project.

“A person struggling to make ends meet can purchase donkeys and carts, not as a means of empowerment but merely for survival.

“Donkeys are also not allowed to use our national roads.

“Our people do not need donkeys. They need proper roads infrastructure, clean and drinkable water, sustainable primary healthcare etc.

“There is a cultural misrecognition in this country where MEC Lehari is condemning the community to a state of hopelessness,” Makgoba said.

Actual market prices

Ikabang Dire, a resident from Dibono, who has been using a cart to collect wood to sell to the locals, believes that the price at which the government bought the carts and donkeys was inflated,

“A cart of that sort would never be above R10 000 while a single donkey would cost you below R2 000. Normally we exchange a goat for a donkey. It is unbelievable,” Dire said.

Government weighs in

According to department spokesperson Oshebeng Koonyaditse, all 20 carts, which mostly were given to women, cost the taxpayers R780 000.

“The 20 carts were procured for a total of R780 000 inclusive of the three-year maintenance plan. The two-seater is R32 500 and the four- seaters is R45 500,” Koonyaditse said.

In its statement, the department said during the handover ceremony: “The department of community safety and transport management remains committed to touching the lives of citizens focusing on the rural areas of the province.”

Handing over the carts, Lehari called on the beneficiaries to take care of their carts to ensure that they could use them wherever they needed to go, according to the statement.

The department claimed that the service provider had transferred skills to two local residents who would maintain and repair the carts for three years and would be paid by the department through the service provider.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the North West criticised the provincial government’s move.

“Lehari unashamedly arrived at the villages with his convoy of blue-light German luxury vehicles to donate donkey carts to beneficiaries within the community to use as a mode of transport to clinics, shops, and a school which is 20km away in a neighbouring village,” DA member of the provincial legislature Freddy Sonakile protested.

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