“We are not a construction mafia”

Lentswe, Klerksdorp – “We are not a construction mafia. You cannot label us that way. We represent the poorest of the poor and will continue to do so.” This was the reaction of an indignant Mzukisi Jam to last week’s Lentswe report, in which he was identified as one of the offenders who had previously been served with a court order banning him from the Buffelsdoorn Road construction site. Jam is the provincial spokesperson for the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO).

According to Jam, he was surprised to find out that his name and Jonas Thamsanqa’s were on the ‘stupid ban’.

“We are going to fight it. We don’t understand how they put us on interdict when they (the contractor) called on us to intervene.”

He explained that the site was closed “by the locals” because they wanted to be considered for hiring workers, and those who were already employed “had problems with the rates they were being paid”. “We were called in to talk to them and we asked them not to close the site because the project is important to the community in terms of development and employment. Then the main contractor voluntarily came up with promises to resolve the situation by saying that subcontractors would consider locals for employment. But when the time came to implement these promises, nothing came of it. Then the locals felt cheated and closed the site again. They also had a problem with the subcontractors from Pretoria and again we were called in to intervene. Before we knew it, our names were on the stupid court order,” Jam said.

According to him, there is a big difference between the construction mafia and business forums that negotiate to hire a percentage of the staff of construction companies from a community where they work. Construction mafias, also called extortion groups, are networks that use violence and other illegal means to demand money or a stake in development projects. “We are not a construction mafia,” he said.