Paul Kirk A Durban high court judge, Phillip Levisohn, has summonsed the deputy director of Prince Gideon Zulu’s Department of Social Welfare and Population Development to court. The summons will see top civil servant Eric Mhlongo appear before Judge Levisohn next month to explain why his department is being taken to court and sued with such frequency. The summons comes as the KwaZulu-Natal courts face an ever- increasing number of pensioners taking Zulu to court. The situation is now so bad that the sheer number of cases against Zulu and his department are threatening to clog the already overburdened courts. An examination of the court rolls shows that, for almost a year, hardly a day has gone by without a pensioner taking Zulu to court. Up to 10 such cases can be on the roll on the same day. The litigation results from the large number of pensioners who arrive at paypoints to be told that, according to computer records, they are dead or simply no longer exist. On this basis they are refused their pensions. The pensioners, who cannot normally afford litigation, go to NGOs such as the Black Sash for aid and are guided to lawyers who are only too keen to represent them. Such is the success rate of litigation against Zulu’s department that lawyers are normally eager to accept cases for no charge. When pensioners win their case the judiciary award costs as well, forcing the department to foot the bill for being sued. Judge Levisohn wants to know why the local pension offices cannot sort out pension problems without litigation that ultimately costs the taxpayer. Zulu is suing the Mail & Guardian for a series of stories the paper ran on possible improprieties in his department. His daughter has been receiving payments from Cash Paymaster Services, a company that was awarded the contract to deliver pensions in his province. This money was then routed to Zulu.
The Heath Special Investigating Unit is probing the stories written by the M&G.