Mr Pheello Mlotshwa from Sakhile admitted that the Sotho-name and Zulu-surname do not really make for many differences as regards his commitment to helping other people.
Pheello’s father was a farm worker at Rietspruit and at his son’s age of six, the family moved to Holmdene, where Pheello attended Matalaza Primary School and matriculated at Holmdene Secondary School.
By 1999 he was back in Standerton after his father passed away and mother, Emma, has four grandchildren, who can not totally compensate for the loss of one son, who disappeared between 2005 and 2006.
Pheello however, has been making the family name proud since he began a page in 2015, while working as a security guard in Secunda, sharing comments and complaints of residents.
“What had inspired me the most was that people’s issues were not dealt with,” he said.
He sat in with an interview with a woman from Sakhile whose house was not completed, trying to accentuate the difficulties of this assault victim.
Complaints ranging from electricity and water supply to sewage-related problems are handled in an orderly fashion.
After making a note of the person, the address and specific complaint, he tries to trace the reference number at the Lekwa Municipality before posting it on social media.
One was almost afraid of asking how much data is spent monthly.
“I use a lot of data,” Pheello said, while showing the newspaper the cell phone’s screen, totalling to 30K.
Even digging a bit more with only an ID in property-related matters, is not beyond his capabilities and his level of social awareness led to establishing a Facebook-group, ‘No farmer, no food, no future’ in 2016.
“I try to motivate people to support farmers,” he added.
A national daily even contacted him in 2017 for an interview after he posted videos on YouTube.
Apart from being a social activist, local politics is also in the picture for the man who speaks Zulu, Sotho and English fluently, as well as a bit of Afrikaans.
He is spoken for however, and did not divulge the expenses regarding the lobola for the girlfriend of two years standing.
She surely has to wait in line when he is busy attending to what has become so important to him:
The painstaking efforts of many people to solve their municipal and other difficulties.
