Workers distressed over bonded houses

Distressed families of former Germiston City Council employees spoke to Kathorus MAIL about their stress caused by unscrupulous estate agents who have fraudulently dispossessed them of their bonded homes and put them on the streets.

Maggie Mathega, 57, is the widow of former Germiston employee Khashane Theopilus Mathega who was employed in the old City Council’s Sewerage Department in Katlehong from 1975 until he and several hundred other were retrenched in 1993.

But a year before, in 1992, inspired by the winds of change that were sweeping South Africa at the time, Theopilus, like most of his co-workers at the Germiston Municipality, bought a bonded house in the new suburb of Siluma View, in Vosloorus. And when he and hundreds of his co-workers were retrenched, the following year in 1993, the municipality paid their bond for six months and then stopped.

When Theopilus died in 2009, Maggie could not afford the bond repayments on the house. With no money paid to her late husband after he was retrenched, Maggie told Kathorus MAIL she has been waiting in vain for the past 23 years.

“The worst part is that now there are people who are hounding me and my children out of the house and they claim they are now the new owners after they bought the house,” said Maggie. She says her only hope is that finally her late husbands’ unpaid retrenchment package can be resolved so she can be able to solve her own housing problems.

For the best part of 17 years Sam Dlamini, aged 46, grew up in the house his father, who was employed by the Germiston City Council as a truck driver, bought in Mailula Park in Vosloorus. But in 2003, the house was repossessed by the bank and family was kicked out. “They told us we would be downgradedfollowing my father’s retrenchment from the Germiston City Council almost 10 years earlier, in 1993. We were allocated an RDP house in Buhle Park,” recalled Dlamini, who said the only money his late mother was ever paid by the Germiston City Council was the six-month bond-free rental from the bank.

Dlamini said he believes his father and many of his co-workers were unfairly treated by both the old Germsiton City Council and the new Ekurhuleni Municipality under the African National Congress. “Surely there must be records indicating what happened to the money due to those retrenched employees,” says an agitated Dlamini.

Sonwabile Fica told Kathorus MAIL his father was also employed by the Germiston City Council as a municipal policeman in Katlehong from 1976 until he was retrenched in 1993. And by the time he died in 2000, Finca Senior was still hoping he would be paid what was owed to him. “He died a broken man who could not stand to see his wife and children suffer,” Sonwabile said.

Zacharia Moeketsi is now 50 and he too, told how in 2003, his family was downgraded and relocated to an RDP house in Buhle Park after his family’s bonded house was repossessed by the bank following his retrenchment in 1993. “I was employed as a municipal depot yard petrol attendant and store-keeper in Katlehong. And the Germiston Municipality only paid for my bond repayments for six months before they stopped,” said Moeketsi.

Fifty-year-old Frans Seleli, formerly of Ponong Extension 5, was a municipal hostel supervisor in Katlehong and he was retrenched by the Germiston City Council in 1993 and downgraded and relocated to an RDP house in October, 2000. “The only money I was paid was R5 000 until I was kicked out of my house,” he said.

Meanwhile, according to the representative Tabo Buzwa of Buzwa Investigators, told Kathorus MAIL that they are now waiting for a response from the Ekurhuleni Municipality to a report submitted on behalf of the employees by the Metro’s Audit Department’s Koos Molobela.

Attempts by Kathorus MAIL to get hold of Molobela remained unanswered.