Johannesburg - The pain
was etched on the faces of Patience Mtikitiki and Nophumzile Mahlatshana, whose husbands died while working at an Aurora mine in Springs.
Mahlatshana’s husband Mnikelo arrived in Joburg in 1968 from the Eastern Cape and worked at the then JIC Mining Services-owned mine until he was retrenched in 1999. She said her husband was paid R15 000 for 21 years’ service.
When he died in 2009, she could bury him only a month later when she received R10 000 for the burial, of which she used R7 000 for his funeral.
The mine later gave her R2 900 from her husband’s UIF contribution and a similar amount for outstanding leave.
Mtikitiki’s husband Anton Melembe died in 2006, but rather than pay her his pension money, the mine company offered her a job in his place.
She said the mine’s promise to pay out her husband’s pension had not been met.
The Star