Bidding the ghetto farewell
Ryder Gabathuse | Friday May 7, 2021 06:00
It was in the summer of 1994 when I landed in Francistown, then a town infested with squatter settlements in all its directions. Somerset East, West, PWD, Kgaphamadi, Maipaafela, Monarch, Madzibalori, Matjimenyenga, Coloured and others were indeed an eyesore.
At least I recently found myself exiting a diametrically changed Francistown with a befitting stature of a city, albeit with its own challenges.
It’s in Francistown that my writing career started in earnest after pioneering at the Dikgang Publishing Company newsroom in 2003. My relationship with the publication however, had started much earlier in 1996 when I was a correspondent based in Francistown during the tenure of Sechele Sechele as the newspaper's Editor.
My departure from the city is akin to a ‘divorce’ indeed. In fact, I found it hard to depart in silence after the city hosted me for so many years. After many years of covering the northern stories, the city had become my comfort zone with thorough local knowledge.
When writing this piece, the ugly scenes of Somerset –West near Bokowe (from my early days in town, seen through the windows of a slow-moving morning train as it slowed down before arriving at the station) kept on tormenting me as they replayed in my memory.
It was the rusty and inhumane tin shacks that presented Francistown as a filthy town although it (the town) had a massive responsibility of providing hope to the rural area dwellers in the proximity of the town, as it does even today.
The former squatter settlement (Somerset-West) has now been converted into a sprawling industrial site and this has since washed away the former eyesore of an overcrowded squatter settlement.
During the rainy season, it was painful seeing mud huts and other rickety structures collapsing over people forcing the office of the District Commissioner and other generous city dwellers to run helter skelter assisting people with tents and other resources.
Infrastructure and services were actually a challenge here as people from across the country looking for opportunities just allocated themselves land without permission from the concerned authorities just between the A1 highway and the railway line. Ablutions and toilet facilities were not provided for, forcing the over-crowded residents to relieve themselves anywhere they chose.
Makeshift huts made from card-board boxes, metals, wood, plastic and anything that people could lay their hands on, gave Francistown an ugly image.
Although the image of the ‘ghetto’ is refusing to leave the city even today, Francistown now has a better image to behold.
The skyline of Monarch in particular has literally changed for the better with services like tarred roads, streetlights and others provided. The low-income location of Monarch used to be horrible with dark streets, poor roads, overcrowded plots and criminals took advantage of the situation to wreak havoc.
Declared a city in 1997, Francistown experienced the first gold rush in Africa in 1869, 15 years before the gold boom at Witwatersrand in South Africa. It was an English prospector, Daniel Francis who founded the city in 1897.
At first, Francistown was simply a settlement that attracted people from all over the country and southern Africa to the gold mines at Monarch, Somerset and other mining sites.
It was around 1995 when the Francistown City Council authorities finally took a decision to dismantle the squatters in an endeavor to give the city a major facelift to combat many ills associated with the crowded squatter settlements.
I witnessed the city’s major facelift take shape at Monarch through infrastructure development at the Gerald Estates, Ntshe House, the High Court, Magistrates Courts, the sports complex, the bus/taxi rank, the national stadium, the regional Bank of Botswana office, the conversion of an ordinary airport to an international facility and three major malls of Galo, Nswazwi, Nzano and others.
Another major landmark that has diametrically changed the face of Francistown is the state-of-art Kenneth Nkhwa spaghetti interchange. It has changed the way of doing business in the city and has since become an attraction of some sort.
In 2016, the closure of the Tati Nickel Mining Company (TNMC) copper/nickel mine, 40 kilometres east of Francistown dealt the city and the north east a deathblow. The single commodity dependent economy of the city was exposed as the advent of the mine closure has left the city in limbo.
Although there is gold mining activity at Mupane, just in the outskirts of Francistown, it’s perhaps its mining scale that does not make it a significant player in the city’s economy like its closed TNMC counterpart.
Perhaps, what is worrying in Francistown are the unemployment rate, poverty; low industrial activities as well as low entertainment and recreational activities.
Previously, the Francistown Local Economic Development (LED) presented leading industries in terms of employing many people in Francistown where wholesalers and retailing trade have employed 6,686 persons followed by the public administration at 4,869, then construction with 4,207 and manufacturing at 3,392. These figures have obviously been affected by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This week I started reminiscing about the good old days at Ngilichi House, which the Mmegi/The Monitor team reconciled with early this year after a break which saw us occupying the property owned by a rival property mogul, Haskins.
It was at the Ngilichi House that media workers from across the media houses used to converge at the offices especially when we prepared for the commemorations of the World Press Freedom Day which is held on May, 3. Those were the days before the advent of the Coronavirus.
It was at Ngilichi House where we made friends and enemies alike. I remember an incident back in the day, when journalist Joel Konopo who was then based at the Francistown office, early in his journalism career was scared out of his wits by veteran opposition politician, Vain Mamela for allegedly misrepresenting him. Mamela had threatened to beat him up.
Those were the common hazards of the industry but they could not hinder us from incessantly reporting on these activities as they occurred.