Minister please stop Grahamstown from becoming a ghost town. Do not move the seat of the High Court from Grahamstown to Bisho

My name is Xolelwa Faku, I am in my mid 20’s. I wrote my exam in 2005. During 2009 I worked for Nando’s for a period of 4 months before the business went bankrupt. Since then I have been unemployed. It is really tough. I visit libraries to read the ‘employment offered’ section; I submit Curriculum Vitae (CV) to different shops at least three times a week. It is difficult my Honorable Minister of Justice. In some places if the boss is a male, sexual favors are expected in exchange of a job.

In most of the adverts they require experience. Where are we expected to get experience when we have been unemployed for most of our youth? Where are we expected to get experience when we have just left school?

My Honorable Minister of Justice, unemployed person have needs just like any other human being; it is quite frustrating when you cannot meet your basic needs. At time you feel like committing suicide, you feel very worthless and useless. You can hardly afford to buy essential things, such as toiletries, which are very basic and personal. You lose your sense of being at home; because you are unemployed you are not given your rightful place and accorded your respect. If your younger sister is working she will be consulted before any decision is taken, not you. The reason is you are unemployed. You will not be consulted on anything even if that affects your child or you as a person.

When you walk into a kitchen you will be closely monitored. If you open a fridge, your mother, I mean your mother will tell you don’t use the mix a drink because it is for school children (mix a drink is a drink that you mix with water), bear in mind that you don’t open it for mix a drink but you want water. If touch a bread bin by mistake, I mean by mistake, your mother will jump and say don’t use the bread because it is for children who have gone to school.

Tell me who wouldn’t think of suicide under such circumstances? Do you blame that person?

My Minister of Justice, there are times when you don’t eat because you are hungry, you eat because the next person is hungry and you are compelled to eat because you don’t know when your next meal will be. I can tell you the names of three young people who committed suicide recently in one week due to unemployment. I haven't seen a movie in months and I don't remember the last time I had a night out. How sad. Unemployment is very difficult emotionally. At times, you just want to be alone and cry and cry and cry until tears run dry. Unemployment is very devastating on health.

In Grahamstown, the unemployment rate is hovering at a towering 70%, the most affected being young people. Grahamstown has been shedding jobs almost continuously ever since the end of the 1970s. A factory that used to process our kaolin clay closed down, the railway closed down, a place that we used to call the market closed down, kwaru closed down.

The scale of human suffering that this has caused must never be underestimated. Our communities are hubs of substance abuse and domestic violence. Families have been broken down. The only growing sector of the local economy is the liquor industry whose tentacles cover every aspect of social life. Young people drinks as if there is no tomorrow, the famous alcohol is umtshovalale, made out of the yeast cake and sold at R1.50c a litre. Males with shrunken and vacant eyes and females whose bodies have lost all integrity, all hang around aimlessly in residential circumstances of unparalleled squalor. The drug industry, female and child abuse fester everywhere. The pain of the situation is unrelieved.

It is estimated that if the seat of the High Court moves to Bisho, the city will lose about R23 million. In 1995, President Mandela appointed a commission under the chairmanship of Mr Justice Hoexter, to look at the rationalisation of the High Courts in South Africa, found that ‘Grahamstown is an economically depressed city in which unemployment is rife. We find that the ripple effect of moving the Seat of the High Court from Grahamstown would prove crippling to the city. We find further that to close the High Court in Grahamstown completely would in socio-economic terms, be nothing short of catastrophic for a large segment of the city's community. It should be pointed out, moreover, that in either situation the brunt would be borne by the socially and economically disadvantaged section of the community."

Minister of Justice we appeal to you to stop moving the seat of the High Court from Grahamstown to Bisho. This will have devastating and dire, disastrous effects. We appeal to you to heed the quality of being truthful of the people of the city of saints. We have absolute faith in you.

Yours truly,

Xolelwa Faku

Unemployed People’s Movement, Deputy Chairperson
078 4404 512

UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT (UPM)
“We call upon the right to work…”
69 “C” Nompondo Street, Gehamstown, 6139
Contacts: 072 299 5253, 078 625 6462, 073 578 3661
Email: xola.mali, ayandakota