Marion Edmunds
The old and the crippled, the blind and the lame of Nyanga and beyond in the Western Cape are furious with Welfare Department officials, who they say make their already tough lives a nightmare.
They want to tell the politicians they are not getting the grants they were promised which are all they have to buy their daily bread.
Emanuel Ngxangxa (73), chairman of the Nyanga Pensioners’ Forum, says he is convening a meeting of the pensioners’ forums from all over the Western Cape next week, where they will discuss a march to parliament.
“Things are getting worse and worse,” he says at the Zolani Centre in Nyanga where pensioners gather on Tuesdays to get their pension documents reviewed by officials. Reviews have to take place yearly. If a review fails or the documents aren’t submitted for review, the grants are stopped.
“People start queueing here at four in the morning, and look,” Ngxangxa says pointing at his watch, “the officials have only arrived now and it is ten to ten already and they say that they will only deal with 180 people … and they will be gone by three.”
A large crowd has assembled in one of two halls in the Zolani Centre. Women with babies on their backs, pensioners and disabled people are pushing forward to the stage upon which four officials stand with piles of ID books on a table. The officials call out names — those who would be seen that day. The crowd surges forward. The officials are young, well- dressed and brook no nonsense.
Once finished, the lucky 180 who were called out by name grab chairs and blankets, and storm to the next hall. There they will sit all day, waiting to have their forms processed by the officials. Even then, many will be turned away for not having the right documents or for failing the newly introduced means test, which calculates whether an individual is poor enough to receive a pension or a grant. Few of them understand the means test.
Some 400 people are left in the first hall, many clutching their documents in the hope that there may be some mistake, and the official might come back and call their names. Some flow out of the hall in to the courtyard and accost Ngxangxa to complain.
Ida (60) has been waiting since 1994 for a disability grant. She comes every month in a desperate bid to get into the second hall. Once again she has not made the right queue. Gladys is a mother of four. She has no husband. This is the last month in which she can have her maintenance grant reviewed, before it is stopped. But the officials will not see her today, and she will now lose her grant altogether and have to apply from scratch. Reapplication means submitting a host of documents and a three-month wait while they are processed.
The women pull packets out of their bras, and unwrap them slowly, to expose dog- eared documents: ID books, husbands’ death certificates, children’s birth certificates, receipts and doctors’ statements — the documentation of their lives, guarded in their ample bosoms.
“She is very angry,” says Ngxangxa who is translating Ida’s diatribe, “she is so angry with the government. Rose Sonto is our MP and she has come here once and nothing changed … hey, they are so angry,” and then he starts shaking with disbelieving giggles as does the crowd that has gathered around him.
In the midst of this, a shout goes up in the hall and suddenly there is a clamour. A young, shapely woman in tight pants pushes her way out of the hall with a small pile of ID documents, leaving a storm behind her.
“She came to get some more people, and she just chose the ones she knew … it’s not fair, she selected the wrong people,” a woman explained as the brouhaha died down.
“Look, look,” shout some of the women, “look, here is an old lady, it’s disgusting …” The crowd parts to reveal in its midst a hunched, wizened woman who is half the size of her neighbours. She shuffled forward in her slippers to talk to us. She leans heavily on a walking stick and talks in a whisper, eyes downcast, stopping to wipe tears away.
Her younger neighbours take up her cause. “She has been here since early this morning, since five o’ clock this morning, and nobody has taken care of her. She is 80, and nobody cares.”
While the women press round to express their outrage, an elderly man stands against the stage, staring at his ID book, turning the pages over and over again. On his chest is pinned a green and yellow badge with a picture of the old man, President Nelson Mandela, raising a clenched fist.