In travelling from the Cape to Salisbury in his quest to build a railway line to Cairo, Cecil John Rhodes traversed a countryside now known as the Taung District. Historians have always avoided writing anything about this part of South Africa as there was barely anything to write home about. In fact there is no mention of this area in the history during the building of the railway except for small generalizations.
Taung houses what still remains to be South Africa’s biggest irrigation scheme known as the Vaalharts Irrigation Scheme. This is at the small town of Heartswater which the local Barolong and Batlharo tribes know as Phokwane. It’s interesting that I have known this part of South Africa and its magnificent irrigation project for thirty years now and yet I never bothered to check out the history of the scheme.
It was only three days ago when I met Mr Mmoloki Khukhutha who mentioned that this irrigation project was conceived as a mitigation project to create permanent jobs for military veterans who were returning from World War Two.
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