Pensioners struggle after vigilantes chase away immigrant tenants

Pensioners in KwaThema in Ekurhuleni say they are struggling to make ends meet after vigilante groups forced out their immigrant tenants, cutting off the rental income they relied on to supplement their old age South African Social Security Agency grants. For 69-year-old pensioner Joseph Phakathi, renting out backyard business spaces had been his main source of income for more than a decade. When he became eligible for the older person’s grant of R2,400 a month, the pension became an additional source of income.

He rented three backyard business spaces to Mozambicans. Together, they paid him R2,300 a month in rent. Another Mozambican man, who ran a chicken braai stand nearby, paid R300 a month to store his equipment overnight in one of Phakathi’sshacks.

On June 29, a day before the “deadline” set by anti-immigration organisations for all undocumented immigrants to leave South Africa, Phakathi said a group of vigilantes came to his home. He said they ordered him to “evict his tenants” or “face a R10,000 fine” or “have his house burnt down”. “It was my bread and butter.

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I wanted the Mozambicans to stay, but where would I get R10,000 to pay the fine, and what if they burnt my house down?” said Phakathi. He said he later watched neighbours’ homes being targeted after they refused to send immigrant tenants away. One of his former tenants recently phoned from Mozambique asking whether it was safe to return.

“I told him not to come back yet,” said Phakathi. Pensioner Gogo Nomasonto, 71, said she had relied on rental income from four rooms and a shack, where one of her Mozambican tenants ran an amagwinya business. Together, her tenants paid her about R2,500 a month.

Like Phakathi, she receives a R2,400 older person’s grant. She lives with seven grandchildren. While five receive child support grants of R580 each, she said the money is quickly spent on school-related expenses, leaving her responsible for meeting all the household’s other needs.

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