Pretoria - Gone are the days when dangerous wild animals from the Kruger National Park roamed freely on the streets of Muyexe village, outside Giyani in Limpopo.
Muyexe residents will be able to feel safe after a modern state-of-the-art 17km R9 million buffer zone fence is erected to protect the community and their livestock from the animals.
Today, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform will officially hand over the buffer zone fence to the community.
Over the years, the lives of the community were in constant threat from wild animals breaking the Kruger Park fence, killing livestock and damaging crops in their fields.
People were losing cattle every week to the predators escaping from the Kruger National Park, consequently depriving the poor community of their only source of livelihood.
Muyexe village, bordering the Kruger Park on the Punda Maria Gate and now the proposed Shangoni Gate, was selected as the first pilot site for the implementation of the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP) -- launched by President Jacob Zuma in 2009.
The fence is in direct response to the community's outcry to save their livestock from wild animals.
During the first consultations to determine the community's developmental needs after the village was declared a CRDP pilot site, a community member asked the department to provide him with a gun in his desperate need to protect their livestock which prompted the need for the fence.
