Peter Dickson
Eastern Cape pensioners almost went without their welfare grants this month when a dispute arose on pay-out day following allegations that teenagers were receiving pension payments.
The villages of Dyantyi and Makapela in the Centane district have been feuding for generations, and allegations of corruption in monthly pension payments sparked the latest row.
The Dyantyi headman, Musicman Dyantyi, has been accused by his rivals of paying pensions to non-qualifiers like his young girlfriend, teenaged relatives, friends and his local councillors.
Two weeks ago, welfare officials arrived in Makapela to distribute pension payments.
The village falls within the jurisdiction of acting amaKwayi chief Mtobeli Balfour – a member of the local welfare forum probing Dyantyi’s alleged collaboration with welfare officials to pay pensions to non-qualifiers.
Dyantyi demanded that the welfare officials go to his home and pay the pensioners there.
An official told Dyantyi that his application to the Tribal Authority to have his home recognised as a pay point had not yet been approved.
But pensioners had already been told to gather at Dyantyi’s kraal, and when the welfare officials attempted to reach the recognised pay point in Makapela, they drove into a three-taxi blockade, supported by about 400 people, at a gate between the Makapela and Dyantyi villages.
Balfour says Dyantyi demanded that the welfare officials head straight for his home to pay the 800 waiting pensioners. The officials refused.
“Desperate negotiations then started with tempers flaring on both sides,” said Balfour, who called the police for assistance.
“An untenable situation became a crisis when the police arrived. It was three policemen in an open van facing a crowd that was now close to 1 500 people, consisting of pensioners, onlookers, Dyantyi and his councillors,” said Balfour.
Balfour asked the local station commander to send reinforcements, which he did.
The impasse was only broken three hours later when Dyantyi was promised a pay-out at his kraal if he let the welfare officials pass through.
Dyantyi addressed the crowd which then dispersed.
Balfour says the welfare forum has given the Eastern Cape Department of Welfare and Population Development a list “of those people who paid Dyantyi R100 to facilitate the approval of their applications”.
He said the saga was the result of a border dispute between the Dyantyi and Makapela villages, fuelled by bickering headmen.
Balfour says since 1962, at the behest of the royal Balfour family, the Dyantyi were the headmen of both villages. This followed the death of Harvey Balfour, last chief of the Makapela village, without an heir – ending 100 years of direct family rule.
Balfour is his fourth direct descendant and sole claimant of the amaKwayi chieftainship.
Balfour says he founded the village and built the local school and the district’s two Presbyterian churches “out of his own pocket”.
While the government dithers over redefining the borders, mindful of upsetting disgruntled Transkei chiefs so soon after the stripping of their administrative powers in favour of Transitional Rural Councils and also mindful of their power-broking vote in the forthcoming election, Balfour says the tense “tug- of-war” continues.