Proud day for 'people of the dew'

The Bafokeng tribe has invested its income from platinum mining in assets such as the stadium.

When the All Blacks face the Springboks at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Phokeng near Rustenburg on Sunday morning, it will be a match of more significance than they might realise.

For a start, the venue is unusual.

This is not your typical rugby country by a long shot. It is rural, mining country.

The air is hot and dry, but out of the bushveld rises a 40,000-seat stadium of international class.

Added to all this is that the match will be a dress rehearsal for the event the whole of South Africa is eagerly awaiting - the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

The Royal Bafokeng Stadium is set to be a venue for some of the pool matches and organisers are banking on this test going smoothly.

But the most significant point about this Tri-Nations test match is that it is the culmination of a long and hard struggle by the Bafokeng tribe to be recognised.

The Bafokeng are originally Bakwena (crocodile) people, supposedly coming from central Africa.

They migrated southwards and according to oral tradition came across an area of valleys which captured heavy overnight dew. They decided to settle there and, in honour of the occasion, to take the name 'Bafokeng,' literally meaning 'people of the dew'.

The more recent story of the Bafokeng tribe is like many others in South Africa - a poor tribe barely surviving in a traditional subsistence existence.

Where this tale is different is that this all changed dramatically in 1999.

The key to the success of the Bafokeng people was right under their feet.

Yes, located deep underground is the mineral-rich Merensky Reef with an abundance of chrome reserves and the world's second-largest platinum deposits.

The problem was that a rich mining company, Impala Platinum Holdings (Implats), had been extracting the platinum from the land since the 1960s, but the tribe had not received any of the profits.

In 1999 the late Kgosi (king) Lebone Mollwane Molotlegi II won a 10-year legal battle for royalty payments from Implats - amounting to an estimated 827 million rand ($178 million at today's exchange rates) when paid at the end of the 2002 financial year.

Royalties were raised to 22 per cent from 1998, and the Bafokeng were given one million Implats shares and a seat on Implats' board, which is currently occupied by the new king, Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi.

But the success story does not end here.

With so many tales of mismanagement and poor decision-making in these sort of ventures around the world, the Bafokeng tribe did everything right to ensure the tribe benefited from its sudden wealth.

The Royal Bafokeng Resources Holdings (RBR) was formed to manage the mining-related interests of the nation and the income from mining was used to build schools, roads, clinics and a sports complex incorporating the stadium, an athletics track, an Olympic-size swimming pool, tennis courts, basketball courts and a gymnasium.

The upgrading of the infrastructure of the Bafokeng area, which is home to more than 300,000 people, has over the years included roads, street lighting, the building of 49 schools, water reticulation (including 24 reservoirs) and sanitation systems.

But this weekend all attention is on the rugby.

The stadium has been given a spruce up, rugby posts replacing the football posts and hospitality tents erected in the surrounds.

The event will also have a royal flavour as the king will be in attendance, with 100 guests. For the tribe, this is the big one - the chance they have been waiting for to prove that they are capable of hosting an international sporting event.

"We are quite anxious that this test goes smoothly so that we will be able to attract other events of such stature in future," said Mpueleng Pooe, spokesman for the tribe's business arm, Royal Bafokeng Holdings.

Pooe said the tribe was also using the event to attract international investment to the area to achieve its ultimate goal - making each member of the Bafokeng tribe self-sufficient.

"We want to raise the dignity of our people. It is a once-off test, but the implications are going to be far-reaching," Pooe said.

And who is going to win this weekend?

The official line from Royal Bafokeng Holdings is that rugby will be the winner, but Pooe says that although his heart says the Springboks, "my head tells me the All Blacks will do it".

Either way, the Bafokeng win.

* Andrew Austin is the Herald's associate chief reporter