N E W S & V I E W S • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 3 37 The Mzinolovu and the Siyafufusa Communities are direct neighbours to HPM Etterby(NCT Managed) farm near Byrne in Richmond district, these communities have grown considerably and are having an impact on our timber farming business. The Wiveton Farm Community are situated on a neighbouring farm, and they are also direct neighbours. Communities often make unreasonable demands on their farming neighbours due to a lack of services from dysfunctional municipalities as well as conducting illegal activities such as timber theft, fires, poaching, littering, house breaking and uncontrolled livestock grazing. As a manager on NCT Enon and HPM Etterby I have been encouraging my community neighbours to respect the NCT farms as they would expect to be respected in return. Good neighbourliness is a two-way street, not just the communities’ making demands on NCT but communities also assisting NCT to control harmful activities affecting the farm. With the assistance of Eric Mdluli, the NCT Liaison Officer based in Vryheid, we have set up a forum where we have periodic meetings with community committees as well as establishing a community/NCT WhatsApp group. As part of our community relationship development efforts NCT Enon and HPM Etterby farms in Richmond staged a friendly soccer tournament which involved our three local neighbouring communities playing against an NCT team made up of employees from NCT Enon, HPM Etterby, NCT Baynesfield and Funokwakhe Contracting. Games were 20 minutes a side and a round-robin tournament was played with results decided on a points system. Eric Mdluli, Lance Bartlett, Kenneth Mthembu from NCT and Mveli Mtolo from Funokwakhe contracting gave short speeches encouraging communities to respect their neighbours and to use dialog and good communication to ensure a lack of conflict with each other. The main theme was fire has no voice, but people do. A fire cannot speak so burning plantations will not resolve any grievances, but good dialog and communication can achieve solutions. By respecting the timber NCT grows and not damaging it by uncontrolled livestock grazing, burning, and stealing will enable NCT to be in a position to assist the communities going forward. The day arrived and NCT-branded banners and gazebo were set up. Mr Nkosinati from Ndaleni township supplied a PA system for the day for announcing and music which was a huge success. As the teams and spectators arrived the atmosphere began to liven up, the DJ was pumping out good music and as the soccer teams sorted out their team colours, Mveli Mtolo of Funokwakhe Contracting, took over the mike and began to get the excitement going with some enthusiastic exhortations to the spectators and players while NCT staff handed out sweets to the children. NCT team were first up against Ocean Swallows (Wiveton farm), the NCT Etterby supporters were loudly cheering their team and the excitement and – Lance Bartlett – Tree Farming Estate Manager – NCT and Ocean Swallows wishing each other well before playing
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