Nkosikho Mbele. Image: Facebook/ Monet van Deventer
A feel-good story that has been the talk of the town over the past two days has taken a bit of a sour turn after South Africans found out that the more than R400,000 raised for Nkosikho Mbele’s children’s education will not be paid out to him directly.
The 28-year-old a petrol attendant gained overnight fame after a post about his kindness went viral.
A 21-year-old woman named Monet Van Deventer took to Facebook to share the story of how Mbele had helped her by paying for her petrol the other evening. This was after she realised she couldn’t pay because she had forgotten her purse at home.
The post has since been shared over 50,000 times.
Once the post gained traction, Van Deventer started a crowdfunding campaign for him with the aim of raising R100,000. The campaign has since surpassed that by raising over R400,000.
Keen-eyed social media users who read the campaign’s description box and terms and conditions noted that the funds raised would not go directly to him and would instead be managed by the crowd-funding platform.
Backabuddy terms and conditions
The site which hosted the campaign confirmed this via Twitter.
Many viewed this as an insult to the man who kicked off this entire thing with one act of kindness and took to Twitter to share their conspiracy theories about it.
According to the organization, Nkosi has asked that the money be administered by Backabuddy for his safety as he does not live in a safe area and the description box of the campaign has since been amended to reflect this.
This has done little to quell the anger of the crowd as some of them have even taken to asking for their donations back.
Speaking to Independent Media, Backabuddy said: “BackaBuddy Financial Manager and Chief Operations Officer Catherine Du Plooy is meeting with Nkhosikho and Monete this afternoon at the petrol station to discuss how Nkhosikho would like his funds to be managed. They will also speak with the service station manager to verify the details of Nkosi’s remarkable act of kindness.”
WATCH: Jacaranda listener donates R700k to Hoërskool Driehoek tragedy
For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.
Download our app and read this and other great stories on the move. Available for Android and iOS.