By Jon Allsop
The Nation
May 9, 2019
Chiti Makwetu’s farm is a long way away from the main road. That, he believes, is why his government has been ignoring him. One day last September, he complained that efforts to install electricity have been limited to properties near the road—a ploy, he suggested, to convince passersby of the government’s commitment to the area. Meanwhile, land farther from view, like his, has been neglected. “We are literally off the grid,” he said.
Makwetu’s father leased this land from the South African state as apartheid was ending in the 1990s. In the early 2000s, he bought it. “When we got here, there was literally nothing,” Makwetu said. The land was once occupied by white commercial farmers, but they moved away under an apartheid-era policy that turned the wider area into a segregated, black homeland. These days, it’s a farm again. Makwetu works with beef cattle and grows some crops on the side.