The Moutse community's latest threats to close schools unless the area is reincorporated into Mpumalanga from Limpopo are rather unfortunate.

The Moutse community's latest threats to close schools unless the area is reincorporated into Mpumalanga from Limpopo are rather unfortunate.

Contrasted with the government's softening attitude towards the issue, the community's stance is needlessly combative in an evolving climate of rapprochement over the incorporation issue - unless the threats are mere posturing.

Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sicelo Shiceka is on record as saying the government is now willing to address the concerns of the Moutse community, 150km northeast of Pretoria, about the reincorporation .

In November last year the Constitutional Court postponed the hearing of the demarcation dispute in order to give the minister the opportunity to address the issue.

In terms of the court proceedings, Shiceka was to have set out - possibly by this week - the steps he will take to redress the situation.

Given this unfolding process, the Moutse Demarcation Forum's threats are not only counter-productive but also ill-advised. And so is the ploy of using schoolchildren as pawns in the dispute to force the government accede to their demands.

Sacrificing children's future at the altar of political posturing is a folly long exposed by history.