The community accuses Kenneth Marwatshehla of allegedly defrauding them of over R350 000 of their contributions collected over two decades.
The residents have been contributing R30 a month towards the village’s funeral scheme, which guarantees them a R5000 payout to every family who loses a loved one.
According to locals every person who wanted to join the scheme, had to pay a R3000 joining fee.
The monthly contributions would be paid to Marwatshehla on a specific Sunday a month and then it would supposedly be banked for safe keeping.

Residents started getting suspicious about the misusing of funds after the leader, requested that the fee be raised to R50 a month.
They started questioning why they had to pay more money as there have not been many deaths in the area.
Community members selected people to go to the bank to check statements from 2010 to 2022 and they found that the account only had R29 000.
“We were shocked to learn of the account balance and we called a community meeting to address the matter.“Marwatshehla was there and promised to pay back half the money by March 30, but to no avail,” explained Zacharia Modika, a community member.

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Recently the villagers met to conclude a way forward. The Herald attended the meeting and residents came to two conclusions, they want all their money back and they want a new headman.
In January and February the community collected the money themselves and they managed to bank over R15 000 in two months. Marwatshehla told the Herald that he can’t comment on the matter.