PIET RAMPEDI
For Stephina Thoka, Steven Cochrane’s trucking business investment scheme was a beacon of hope.
The 45-year-old mother of three from Mamone village, Sekhukhune, in Limpopo hoped to use the R50 000 profit, promised by Cochrane Trucking, to build a house, start a business and educate her children.
The nursing sister invested her R15 000 bonus into the trucking venture in April 2008, after convincing her sceptical husband it was worth it.
“My hope was to use the profit to start a new business, eventually resign from my job, go into business full-time and create jobs in Sekhukhune. I wanted to use some of the money to invest and create a legacy for my children,” Thoka said – but all that hope turned into a nightmare.
Cochrane disappeared, and her husband started fighting with Thoka over the money, before throwing her out of their matrimonial home.
“I stayed in our house for months without us speaking until on May 22, 2009, when he threatened to hack me to death with a panga. I then fled the house and sought refuge at the Apostolic Faith Mission Church in Jane Furse, where I stayed for a month with the children,” said Thoka, tears streaming down her face.
She said a colleague who got a new job in Seshego later allowed her to stay in a house in the village.
Pensioner Matlala Dithone, of Phokwane village in Sekhukhune, said he lost R9 500 which he had borrowed from friends and relatives.
“When I borrowed the money I did not even tell my wife. Now we are fighting and there is no peace at home.”
Nomvula Madibetsane, 52, an unemployed mother of four, said she had failed to pay university fees for her child for the past two years because she invested R15 000 – excluding administration fees – in the scheme.
She said the trucking venture “turned out to be a dream. It was just a nightmare”.
Jabulani Kubhayi, an emergency worker in Mbombela (Nelspruit) in Mpumalanga, said he invested his savings of R17 000 because he wanted “to improve my living conditions”.
The married father of two added: “I was told that Cochrane already had agreements with the mines to subcontract 50 trucks, which would make money for us.”
Businessman Samuel Mathebula of Puthaditjaba in the Free State confirmed he had lost thousands of rand but declined to comment further.
Truck driver Simon Malatjie, the spokesman for the investors, said he lost R15 000 which he had saved over three years to pay for his daughter’s university fees.
The daughter, who was 15 years old when he started saving the profits made from his spaza shop, is now 21.
Although she passed matric, she had been sitting at home for three years because there is no money.
“We want the court to enforce our rights as stipulated in the contracts signed with Cochrane, which promised to improve our living conditions,” Malatjie said.