Daggakraal, "one of South Africa's most impoverished and isolated communities with plenty of unmined mineral resources", is a town in

Gert Sibande District Municipality Gert Sibande (until 2004 known as the Eastvaal District Municipality) is one of the 3 districts of Mpumalanga province of South Africa. The seat of Gert Sibande is Ermelo. The majority of its 900 007 people speak IsiZulu (2001 Census). The di ...

near Volksrust in the outskirts of

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Nguni languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It shares bor ...

province,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. The town had about 1,450 households in 2014. There is no means of production a number of failed state projects aimed at uplifting people. Daggakraal area code 2492 has two clinics namely Sinqobile CHC in Daggakraal no 3 and Daggakraal CHC in Sinqobile A. There are four primary schools namely Sizenzele Primary School, Hambani Primary School, Daggakraal Primary School and Ethembeni Primary School and two high schools are Nalithuba Secondary School and Seme Secondary School named after ANC founder Dr. Pixley Ka Isaka Seme.

Founding

Pixley Ka Isaka Seme Pixley ka Isaka Seme OLS (c. 1881 – June 1951) was a South African lawyer and a founder and President of the African National Congress. Early life Seme was born at Inanda, a small community of the American Zulu Mission of the American Boar ...

, President of the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...

from 1930 to 1936, was born in Durban in 1881. In 1911, he established the "South African Native Farmers Association" in order to encourage black farm labourers from the Free State to buy land in the area and become commercial farmers themselves, and thus to attain personal independence. This initiative led to the settling of Daggakraal in 1912, and so worried the white government that it formulated and enacted the Natives Land Act of 1913, barring black people from owning land in South Africa. However, the black farmers who had bought property in Daggakraal retained the land they had purchased. These farmers later rented residential stands to families that relocated from the Eastern Transvaal. Seme owned two farms in the area.

Post-apartheid

In 1997, a piggery, grain and livestock farm was handed to the community as part of South Africa's land reform programme. As a result of infighting amongst the beneficiaries and misappropriation of funds, the bequests are now unproductive. A

soccer stadium Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

which began construction in 1991 was never completed due to

embezzlement Embezzlement (from Anglo-Norman, from Old French ''besillier'' ("to torment, etc."), of unknown origin) is a type of financial crime, usually involving theft of money from a business or employer. It often involves a trusted individual taking ...

. A statue of Dr. Pixley Ka. Isaka Seme was erected and unveiled in the Daggakraal Number 02 front opposite Daggakraal Police Station and Ethembeni Primary School on 31 March 2012.

References

Populated places in the Pixley ka Seme Local Municipality {{Mpumalanga-geo-stub