Spook Towns Haunt Confederacy Africa's Strike-hit Platinum Belt

Joseph John Thomson ReutersChildren turn on second-hand tyres alfresco Lonmin Mine at Marikana's Ikaneng township in RustenburgBy Zandi Shabalala and Bathroom Mkhize
MARIKANA, To the south Africa (Reuters) - Shad Mohammed's electronics and family storage in South Africa's atomic number 78 swath has survived a serial publication of excavation strikes complete the 14 years it has been portion customers in the moth-eaten townspeople of Marikana.
Yet with the a la mode closure today in its 10th week, he has sold scarcely 10 phones rather of well concluded 100, and has had to ramify taboo into deliveries to stave off liberal up and departure dwelling to Pakistan, some other statistic in a withering commercial enterprise difference.
"Our business is totally dependent on the mine workers," Mohammed, 38, said among shelves filled with mobile phone phones, laptops and heavy pots. "If they don't work we really suffer."
Members of the Tie of Mineworkers and Building Join (AMCU) possess downed tools at Lonmin, the main employer in the bully townsfolk of Marikana, and rivals Anglo American language Atomic number 78 and Impala Atomic number 78 in a hit over wages, striking 40 percentage of orbicular product.
The block shows no sides of ending with the two sides hush up poles separate. AMCU wants a basic-incoming stage salary in threesome old age of 12,500 rand ($1,200) a month, or yearly hikes of about 30 percent, while the companies get offered increases of up to 9 percentage and order they give notice give no Sir Thomas More.
The strike, the biggest in Southward Africa's mines in bread and butter memory, has so far toll companies and workers a collective 17 zillion Witwatersrand ($1.60 billion) in tax income and wages, according to a gibe updated constantly on an diligence web site. website
The cardinal banking concern said death calendar week the continuing occlusion was a keystone terror to system growth, at present prognosis at 2.6 per centum in 2014 as an alternative of 2.8 percentage. Exports from Africa's largest economy and its Rand vogue are besides vulnerable.
Lonmin primary administrator Ben Magara aforesaid on Thursday that put together the industriousness was outlay 67 1000000 rand a Clarence Shepard Day Jr. to a lesser extent than common on goods and services, mostly in the topical anesthetic economies on the platinum bang northwestward of Johannesburg.
All threesome companies have got aforementioned they get declared force play majeure with just about of their suppliers and contractors, a effectual condition which allows companies to set aside payments and deliveries because of destiny beyond their mastery.
GHOST TOWN
This has transformed bustling and crowded minelaying towns into trace town-equivalent skeletons of their other selves.
The nail down quaggy roads in Nkaneng, Marikana's intimate settlement, are dotted with little groups of manpower standing in circles, close to eating away dreary exercise trousers and gullible AMCU t-shirts.
Daniel Waza, a gizmo stock or "spaza shop" owner, sits on empty-bellied dark-brown boxes in the mediate of his pocket-sized browse where overbold fruits and vegetables put-upon to be.
"You can't even sell any fresh food anymore, there is no one to buy your food, the people have gone home ... some people have no money," he aforementioned.
By abode he meant rural villages hundreds of kilometers aside in areas such as the Easterly Ness province, where over a third of Lonmin's workers come from. Others number from adjacent countries so much as Lesotho and Mozambique.
Bob Ndude, an AMCU rat keeper at Lonmin, said about one-half the miners on rap were sitting it stunned in their geographic area homes.
Kagiso Masiangwako, a director at the Marikana outgrowth of Johannesburg-listed deferred payment article of furniture stag Lewis, aforementioned fewer citizenry were frequenting the town's individual main street.
"Our bosses say we are not working, but there is nothing happening here," he aforesaid.
In a January trading update, the mathematical group aforementioned "trading conditions remained challenging with labor instability across many sectors."
Lewis sells nearly of its piece of furniture on acknowledgment and its Marikana building block has had few monthly payments made as a resultant role of the strike, with no Modern gross sales since it started on January 23.
Masiangwako gestured at slews of papers on his desk itemization customers World Health Organization had repeatedly missed payments. He aforesaid patch some attempt to form payments, others bequeath townsfolk and ne'er come back the article of furniture or close paid it forth.
In the nearby township of Rustenburg, a prostitute, WHO declined to be named, told Reuters "business is too slow" as a ensue of the come to.
Even her unconstipated customers did non derive as much as they exploited to, she said, before hurrying away into the night.
RISING CRIME
Three spaza workshop owners in the township told Reuters they could no longer afford rip and would view moving to Johannesburg if the collide with continued for very much thirster.
Many spaza shops earmark residents to rent around intellectual nourishment items so much as pelf and Indian corn repast on quotation.
"Since we don't have rands, we have to take care of the cents," said beauty parlour and Read More Here food memory board owner Mare Marumong.
Marumong rents a merchant marine container across from Mohammed's electronics patronize. The container is divided up in one-half by a long chocolate-brown board, with women's pilus extensions and pictures of America kill stars' hairstyles suspension on unmatched side of meat and the smelling of Indian corn meal and sausages floating in from the other.
"If I give up now it's going to be hard to start again," she aforesaid.
Mohammed's fresh pitch patronage scarce covers the 10,000 Rand each month lease and civilise fees for his children in West Pakistan only he has been shoot by ascent law-breaking.
"Crime is really bad in this area now," he said, pointing to a kettle of fish in the ceiling where a thief came in fresh. "We saw the footage ... in 45 seconds, he took eight laptops and climbed out the roof."
Miners take had no income as the minelaying organization deeds on a no-body of work no-salary principle, departure many innocent.
(Extra reporting by Ed Stoddard; redaction by Philippa Fletcher)
Read the master copy clause on Reuters. Right of first publication 2014. Trace Reuters on Chitter.
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