Johannesburg - Susan Ferreira’s husband was the kind of man who would spoil her with chocolates and flowers and help her do the dishes.
But when the Grootvlei mineworker couldn’t take care of her any more, he killed himself.
A fitter and turner at Grootvlei, Marius’s salary had shrunk from R12 000 a month to a paltry R60 a day after Aurora Empowerment Systems took over the running of the Springs mine in 2009.
This week, Judge Eberhard Bertelsmann, sitting in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, ruled that Aurora’s directors, Khulubuse Zuma, a nephew of President Jacob Zuma, and Zondwa Mandela, a grandson of Nelson Mandela, should be held personally liable for the failures of the Grootvlei and Orkney mines.
They had been named the preferred bidders for Pamodzi’s liquidated assets.
However, they stripped the mine of almost R2 billion in assets and infrastructure, and left thousands of workers like Ferreira without pay and forced to depend on charity.
Judge Bertelsmann ruled that fellow executives Solly and Fazel Bhana as well as Thulani Ngubane were also liable for the mines’ failures.
All the directors had been “indisputably reckless”, he said.
For Ferreira, the judgment is a bittersweet victory.
“Those men took everything from me,” she said, breaking down.
“Even my husband. I’m glad they have been found guilty. But nothing can ever bring him back.”
The couple had to move out of their home in Springs and had to sell their cars – and even their bed linen and cutlery – to provide for themselves and their teenage daughter.
Near the end, Marius started helping to pump out underground water to earn an income at Grootvlei.
“He was one of the last people there,” said Ferreira.
“He still believed it would get better – he was hoping they would pay him his money. If they had, maybe he’d still be alive and with me.”
But dejected and stripped of his pride, Marius drank ant poison in March 2011 and died a week later in the Far East Rand Hospital. Aurora owed him R170 000.
“He told me he just couldn’t take it any more.”
The trade union, Solidarity, paid for his burial.
The couple’s policies had lapsed.
The 65-year-old Ferreira, who survives on a meagre disability grant, never imagined she would lose her husband that way.
“I think (Aurora’s directors) are so cruel… what they did to us – and they still haven’t paid the outstanding salaries.”
Ferreira has had to move into a tiny municipal flat in Ekurhuleni.
“I haven’t got an easy life now. I miss Marius so much. He was my best friend. He was a very good husband to me all those years, and started to panic when they weren’t paying him any more, that he couldn’t take care of us.”
For Elias van Rensburg, who also worked as a fitter and turner at the Orkney mine, this week’s judgment brings hope to thousands of mineworkers left in abject poverty by the mines’ collapse.
“At least we know that our payments will come one day – that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Aurora owes Van Rensburg R500 000 in unpaid salaries and benefits.
He is surviving “on bits and pieces” from friends and family.
“We’re very glad the directors have been found guilty. They’ve got political contacts and they think they are untouchable – that nobody can do anything to them. But they’re wrong.”
Saturday Star