Durban - Millions of social grant beneficiaries were anxious about whether they would get paid this month, but none more so than Gogo Busisiwe Duma, 77, of Groutville, KwaDukuza, who has not received her pension for more than a year.
Following concerns about whether Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) would be able to pay out the 17 million beneficiaries after their contract with the Department of Social Development lapsed last month, Minister Bathabile Dlamini last week assured the nation that those who usually collected grants at SASocial Security Agency (Sassa) pension pay points would get them on Monday. Those with bank accounts received theirs on Saturday.
Duma remains unsure why she was illegally declared dead in March last year.
“I was going to collect my pension when they told me I could not have any money because I was dead. At first I wasn’t sure if I’d heard correctly. When it sank in I felt like I was losing my mind because it did not make any sense to me,” she recalled.
Duma suspects the fraud took place when she lost her original ID book several years ago. She believes the fraudsters used it to start a funeral insurance policy in her name and when the funds matured they had to get a death certificate to claim on the policy.
“My ID book was stolen from my house so I suspect someone I know was involved but I have no way to prove it.”
According to the fake notice of death, Duma died from gastroenteritis in the Mandeni area. In the file is also a copy of the ID of the person who reported her death, a 29-year-old Mandisa Gcwabaza, who Duma said she has never met.
Efforts to track down Okasihlaba Funeral Services, the company allegedly hired to handle logistics for her “funeral”, proved futile.
“The funeral service company is fake, just like my death. This shows that the person behind this obviously planned it well so that the officials would not suspect a thing.”
If it were not for her daughter Thandi Zulu, and her employer, Ernie Jones, Duma would have starved to death. She said Zulu also helped her with the Department of Home Affairs in the quest to prove she was not dead.
“There were times when I felt like giving up because I felt like each time I went there I kept repeating myself. All they told me was that an investigation was still under way, but Thandi encouraged me not to lose faith,” said Duma, who received her new ID card on March 22 and Sassa card two days later.
The pensioner said she did not open a case. “I’m scared the people involved will kill me for real if the police go after them because they obviously know me.”