Employer must cleanse workers
A business tycoon and his wife have been arrested in connection with the humiliation suffered by three women who work for their cash-loan business in town.
HAZYVIEW – A business tycoon and his wife have been arrested in connection with the humiliation suffered by three women who work for their cash-loan business in town.
They now had to perform rituals to cleanse their employees of any bad luck, recommended the Traditional Healers Association in the country.
The couple who runs Sizanani Cash Loans made their first appearance in the Hazyview Periodic Court on March 12 on charges of attempted murder and were both released on R5 000 bail. The case had been postponed to April 23 in the same court.
This came after the management of Sizanani Cash Loans accused three of their female employees of having connived with unknown suspects who robbed the business on March 2.
Two of the women who came to the office of Mpumalanga News on March 4, had bruises and red eyes.
They alleged that they were assaulted with open palms, fists, the back of a firearm, pointed at with a firearm, pepper sprayed, scratched by a dog after it was instructed by its boss to do so, and even locked in the fridge where a corpse was kept at the couple’s mortuary, Ukukhanya Funerals and instructed “to tell the truth”, by the employer with the help of his wife.
“We want to see him pay for his actions and the law taking its course in this matter. It is taboo in our culture to put an alive person with the dead and set dogs on him or her,” said the women.
This issue had since evoked mixed feelings from different organisations and readers with some saying it was taboo for the employer to have put his employees in his mortuary because a mortuary was meant for the dead.
Gogo Phephsile Maseko, the head of the Traditional Healers Association in the country said the manager would have to perform certain rituals to cleanse his employees of the bad luck he had caused by placing them with the dead.
“Traditionally, only a widow can spend the night with her dead husband. What this employer did is an insult to the country, to the community, to the family of the deceased and the family of those women.
It could have been better if he fired them once from his factory than doing this, and now he has to guarantee the country that they will continue working in his place and receive salary increases year after year because with this bad luck now following them, they will hardly be employed anywhere,” she said.
“Justice must also take its course in this matter,” she said.
Maseko’s sentiments were echoed by Rev Luke Dlamini of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and a member of the South African Council of Churches who also condemned the act.
“This is a very serious issue, however, no matter how a person can wrong you, no one has the right of taking justice into his or her own hands in this country. Torturing people is a thing of the past, moreover, the employer is not certain if indeed the women connived with those criminals. Even if he does, he should have allowed the justice system to deal with the matter.
“Moreover, a mortuary is meant for the dead, this act of putting them with the dead might have long-term psychological effects on the victims. Violation of human rights and showing no respect for their dignity should not be allowed and must be condemned at all costs,” he said.
This newspaper also learnt that some of the victims went to their various churches over the weekend to receive prayer after what had happened. “I went to Moria and was prayed for, I feel like a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders,” one of them said.
