By Staff Reporter
Ha Rasenkisi is a village in the Thaba-Bosiu ward, south-east of Maseru city and an hour’s walk from the Main South 1 road at Masianokeng.
It is home to an unusual enterprise – a trye milling plant.
Entering the premises, you are greeted by the sight of two men, oblivious to your presence as they appear to be hard at work. They are in the middle of a mountain of used tyre – a curiously fascinating sight.
From a closer range, it is clear they are slicing up tyres and you later learn they are preparing the tyres for extraction of oil and production of powder.
The pair are performing their job without any protective clothing – they are only wearing ordinary clothing.
With their bare hands, the men are cutting the tyres with big razor blades in possibly hazardous conditions as they inhale the powder from the tyres. The powder also spills all over the ground, raising questions about its potential threat to vegetation.
Nearby are huge plastic bags filled with powder produced when the tyres are milled with a big firewood-powered furnace.
The men are obstinately reluctant to share information about their activities with outsiders; they are even more edgy and hostile to the media as they curtly tell this publication to direct its questions to the plant’s owner – their employer.
The plant is run under the company known as Bohloeki Enterprises (PTY) Ltd owned by Temoho Khatleli.
Bohloeki means cleanliness and the irony is that conditions at the plant are anything but clean. The furnace spews clouds of dark noxious smoke, raising concerns about air pollution. Residents are not too impressed with this.
They are worried about possible implications from the plant’s operations. In fact, they claim the smoke spreads to the adjacent village of Ha Lesoiti where the water in streams is now discoloured and has a repulsively dark hue.
“The villagers here complained of asphyxiation caused by smoke inhalation. They accuse the pungent odour and the noxious plumes of smoke released into the atmosphere by the plant, of posing a serious health risk to both people and animals,” acting village chief Motlatsi Matamane said.
Matamane disdainfully added: “There has been a public outcry, with residents demanding the plant be removed from their area. The disgust heightened when we convened a public meeting and invited the owner (Khatleli); he told us he had been permitted to operate the plant.
“He was accompanied by a government official who claimed to be from the ministry of health. The official produced a document signed by one ‘Mathabo, which purported that the plant’s permit was authentic.”
According to Matamane, the irate residents were having none of it. They complained that the smoke had also left the water in their supply tanks tainted and black.
Subsequently, Matamane claimed, Khatleli paid him a visit accompanied by an unidentified man wearing police uniform and armed with a rifle. The man strongly warned Matamane to ‘stop interfering with Khatleli’s business’.
He has since written to the commissioner of police complaining about the policeman’s conduct. But the Lesotho Mounted Police Service acting public relations officer Senior Superintendent Kabelo Halahala told theReporter to “seek further details from the writer of the letter as I can’t go to the commissioner’s office to find out about such a letter”.
Matamane had previously expressed the communities’ demand for removal of the plant from the site in a letter addressed to Khatleli on July 23 this year.
As the villagers could not back off from their demand, some days later the Bohloeki Enterprises lawyers, M.S. Legal Minds, wrote a letter to Matamane sternly warning him to “desist from interfering with Khatleli’s business”.
In a two-page letter dated August 28 2023 and signed by Advocate Relebohile Lesholu, the M.S. Legal Minds Chambers wrote:
“With this letter, we warn you that you have no legal authority to instruct Mr Khatleli to remove his business machine. We have also heard that one of the residents, Mr Rethabile Khama, has intentionto interfere with the operations of the business, claiming the machine is dangerous to the public. In the same vein, Khama has no legal standing to interfere with Khatleli’s business.
“With this letter we inform you that legally you have no powers to stop or to evict the business as village chief and we plead with you to stop your plan together with Mr Rethabile Khama. Failure to do so, we will have no alternative other than to institute a court case against you and Khama and all costs will be incurred by you.”
The contents of the letter have been confirmed by Advocate Lesholu who, however, has not replied to this publication’s enquiries regarding the public’s complaints about the alleged damage to the environment and harm to the villagers.
The suspected negative health effects of the smoke and working conditions have been confirmed by two former employees at the plant.
Lelingoana Matamane (36) worked at the plant for a year and eight months beginning 2021.
“At the time we were not supplied with any protective gear such as masks, gloves and overalls to ensure our safety. We removed the ash from the furnace tank using shovels. There was no headgear such as helmets and, as a result, our heads bumped the upper roof of the tank. We would bend all the time when carrying out such work,” Matamane recalled.
He vividly remembers that health inspection was never conducted at the plant.
“Shortly after leaving abruptly, I started experiencing chest pains. I coughed out dark sputum and was forced to go for medical examination. I was told I had tuberculosis. I had breathing difficulties. I am now under medication,” he lamented.
In addition, Matamane said employees were promised a M3 000 reward to extract tyre oil enough to fill six 1 000-litre containers.
“I have never been paid that money. I would only be given a meagre M100 or M20o on rare occasions when I complained about my earnings. We did not know how much exactly we were supposed to be paid at the end of the month. The highest amount I ever received was M800 when I brought a complaint before the local chief,” Matamame said as he pondered the future.
His former colleague, 60-year-old Mabaso Semoli, also recounts the hazardous working conditions he had to endure.
“I now have an unending cough. I coughed out black sputum and was forced to seek medical assistance. During a visit at the clinic, the doctor asked what kind of work I was doing. When I coughed, dark-hued saliva would come out. I now have breathing difficulties.
“I remember that I was occasionally given M100 or M200 when I enquired about my pay. Life has become difficult for me. I was forced to sell all my chickens to make ends meet. That man (Khatleli) owes me unpaid wages,” a distressed Semoli said.
The sub-human working conditions at the plant have not gone down well with the deputy secretary general of the Independent Democratic Union of Lesotho Clarke Letsie.
“In Lesotho there is no contract of piece rate job. There are only three forms of contract of employment,” he explained.
The first, according to Letsie, is the fixed term employment contract that stipulates minimum wage for a day, week and monthly rates. The second is the specific task contract that also allows for daily, weekly and monthly pay rates. The last is the permanent contract that implies pay on monthly basis.
“The fixed term has a starting date and ending time for work to be done while the specific task has starting time and date but there is no surety on when to finish work. In Lesotho, such mode of payment to workers like those at the tyre burning plant based on work done is not permitted,” Letsie stated.
He urged labour inspectors to urgently conduct inspection of the work practices at the plant.
When asked for comment Khatleli, who forbade theReporter from taking pictures of the plant, requested the story not to be run “at least for now”.
Meanwhile, the ministry of health’s pollution control manager, Nt’seke Makutoane, said the environmental health department conducted an inspection of the plant during a site visit and has submitted its report to the ministry of environment.
He could not, however, divulge the details of his department’s findings.
Makutoane noted that one of the requirements for such operations is the carrying out of an environmental impact assessment, conducted under the auspices of the ministry of environment.
The ministry of environment is understood to be studying the report from the health ministry while operations continue at the plant.
