WeeklySA_AdminSHATTERED: Dream of working in Cape Town promised to jobless Limpopo villages apparently by MKP leader Penny Penny goes pfhorototo (belly-up)…
All reports by Sy Makaringe
UMKHONTO we Sizwe Party (MKP) Member of Parliament Papa Penny’s ambitious plan to woo disgruntled ANC members to his party ahead of the forthcoming local government elections has gone pfhorototo*.
Almost 50 of the 150 unemployed men Penny Penny recruited from three villages in Greater Giyani, Limpopo, to work on a citrus farm in Endulini, Patensie, in the Eastern Cape on condition they joined MKP have prematurely returned home, less than a month into their job.
More are expected to go back to their homes in the coming days and weeks fleeing what many describe as “terrible working conditions”, “inhumane treatment by the farm’s foremen”, “paltry pay” and “poor food”.
Papa Penny, whose real name is Gezani Eric Kobane, first made his name as a Shangaan pop singer. He turned to politics around 2010 and served as an ANC councillor in the Greater Giyani Municipality’s Ward 5 from 2011 to 2021, when the July Mawewe ANC branch decided to back Carlson Chabalala as the preferred councillor candidate for the area.
Kobane, who is believed to have a strong following despite his limited education, threatened to stand for the 2021 elections as an independent candidate. He was dissuaded from doing so and ended up serving as an ANC proportional representative councillor. He campaigned for the ANC ahead of May 2024 general elections but jumped ship on the eve of the polls to join his idol and former president Jacob Zuma’s MKP.
Unlike in KwaZulu-Natal and to some extent in Mpumalanga, MKP performed poorly in Limpopo, despite some aggressive campaigning by Kobane and a few others.
Despite this parlours performance, Zuma, who sees Kobane as his trump card to dislodge the ANC in its Limpopo stronghold, parachuted the former musician to Parliament not to enrich parliamentary debate but as an incentive for him to boost MKP’s electoral support in the province.
In his bid to eat into the ANC’s dominant support base, Kobane capitalised on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s party’s major weakness – failure to create jobs, especially for the youth.
He then negotiated a deal with the proprietors of Endulini Fruit in Endulini, about 85km from Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape, to allow groups of unemployed people, mainly youths, from Tomu, Sofasonke and Zamani villages at Nkuri to go and pick oranges, lemons and naartjies at six months’ intervals.
But at meetings he called to recruit the jobseekers, Kobane, who himself grew up on the tomato and avocado farm ZZ2 in Mooketsi, Limpopo, promised them dream jobs in “Cape Town vineyards”.
But, before they could enlist for the jobs, the men were made to complete MKP membership forms, paying a R20 joining fee each.
About 150 men were later collected by two buses to much fanfare in the three villages in Kobane’s home base in Greater Giyani Municipality’s Ward 5. Women lined the streets, cheering and ululating in jubilation as the buses left the villages of Tomu, Sofasonke and Zamani for the Eastern Cape.
But the celebrations were short-lived. Hardly a month after the men had left, the first group of 48 returned home, citing a variety of reasons, ill-treatment by their “Xhosa” foremen, failure to provide them with personal protective clothing, poor living conditions, bad food, poor pay and shortage of water.
“What we were promised turned out to be the total opposite of what we were later to experience at Endulini,” said one of the returnees, Jafta Mathebula.
“We were told we were going to work in Cape Town. But we found ourselves in a hell hole, where the Xhosa foremen treated us like illegal immigrants.”
The 24-year-old could no longer stomach it and returned home even before he could receive his first fortnightly pay. “They can shove it for all I care. My life and wellbeing come first,” he said.
Fannies Nukeri, 25, told Weekly SA Mirror that he signed up for an MKP membership so he, too, could get on the bus to Cape Town to work on the vineyards so he could help his mother and siblings. Their destination was, it later turned out, not Cape Town but Endulini.
Nukeri concurred with Mathebula about the poor living conditions at Endulini, adding that the food they were given was not fit for human consumption.
“The cabbage that was thrown at us on our arrival had already gone bad, and yet it was our ration for the fortnight. The conditions under which we lived were nauseating. They placed mobile toilets, which were already overflowing with feaces and urine, directly in front of the kitchen, creating a health hazard.
“Water was also a huge problem but our immediate bosses never cared. Sometimes we’d go for two days without bathing because of the shortage of water,” he said.
Bongani Knowledge Nobela, 20, said after his first bad encounter with the harsh world of work, he was seriously considering improving his matric marks so he could enroll at college or university.
“I was attracted by the wages, which they said could range from R6 000 to R8 000 a month, but which later proved to be grossly over-exaggerated. We later found out we would lucky to walk away with more than R1 200 a month.
“I wanted to take a short in life but was badly burnt in the process. That’s why I am now seriously thinking of dusting off my books to improve my educational qualifications so I can seek better opportunities in future,” Nobela said.
• Pfhorototo is a word seemingly coined by Kobane himself to mean any of the following: “goes pear-shaped”, “goes belly up”, “goes awry”, unravels”, “collapses”, “goes bust”, etc.
‘THEY TOLD US TO DEFECATE ON THE BUS’
PRESSED: Villagers on 1500km-long trip by bus to work on Cape farm ‘denied pit-stops’…
A 51-YEAR-OLD uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP) member described in harrowing details the horror 18-hour, 1 500km bus trip he and dozens other villagers undertook about a month ago from Greater Giyani in Limpopo to a citrus farm in Endulini in the Eastern Cape for work.
Dan Mahlaule of Sofasonke Village in Greater Giyani Municipality’s Ward 5 was one of 150 men who had been recruited by MKP’s Member of Parliament, Gezani Eric Kobane aka Papa Penny, to work as fruit pickers at Endulini Fruit in Patensie.
Two buses were used to ferry the new recruits to the farm, where they were allegedly promised to earn between R6 000 and R8 000 a month.
What started off as a pleasant and joyful journey soon morphed into a nightmarish ordeal when the drivers of both buses allegedly refused to stop on the way to allow the men to take a comfort break.
“They flatly refused. The only time they stopped was at Kranskop, on the N1 between Modimolle and Bela-Bela, after one of buses broke down. From then on they said the buses wouldn’t stop until they reached their final destination.
“On our bus, there was a young man who was so pressed that he literally cried, desperately pleading with the driver to stop so he could relieve himself. Still the driver would not budge. I also pleaded with him to stop so the young man could relieve himself. But the bus driver told me to tell the young man to defecate into a plastic shopping bag instead. The poor chap had to do it in full view of the other passengers.
“I had never experienced something so demeaning in my life. The poor guy was completely stripped off his dignity. That’s when I knew we were going to face inhumane treatment where we were going,” Mahlaule said. He said his fears became a reality when they walked into what he described as “an apartheid-era kind of establishment”.
“Penny Penny’s utopia was an illusion. On our arrival we were handed bags of mielie meal and cabbages that were already going bad. We were supposed to survive solely on these for the following two weeks. Even pigs are not treated in this way,” the unmarried father of three said.
He said the farm bosses were evasive on the issues of wages and contracts and reneged on the prior assurance that they would be provided with work suits, protective boots, gloves and face masks. “It was precisely because of the lack of masks that I and many others were exposed to the powerful chemicals they use to treat the trees on the farm. “I started coughing non-stop. I was sweating and could not even stand. It felt as though my chest was burning. I was so sick that I had to remain in the compound while others went to work. But none of my superiors came to check up on me to show they cared,” said Mahlaule.
He said it was not until his co-workers alerted the farm foremen to the seriousness of his condition that he was finally taken to Sundays Valley Provincial Hospital, more than one hour away. He said he had to fork out his own money, some of which was wired to him from home, to settle his hospital bill.
He said when he went to collect his X-ray results two days later, the doctor remarked about his chest in isiXhosa: “Ku kubi (It’s very bad).”
“That’s when I told myself I had to go back home real fast. What’s so painful is that Penny Penny never checked up on us. I don’t think he has even been to that farm. When we confront him, he says it is not his fault that we’re not educated that we’ve to seek work on the farms,” he said.
Mahlaule, a former member of the ANC, said he no longer trusted political parties.
“I’m now politically neutral,” he concluded.
‘I WAS BETRAYED’
THE last time Thomas Nkwinika of Sofasonke Village at Nkuri in Greater Giyani, Limpopo, had a regular and relatively decent job was 24 years ago.
That was on the farm Kontiki outside Tzaneen, about 150km away, where his daily task was to pick litchis, mangoes and avocadoes for both the domestic and export markets.
Nkwinika lost his job – which he had only held for two years – after his bosses sold the farm to a black consortium in 2001. Since then life for the 46-year-old married father of two children had been extremely hard as jobs were hard to come by.
For the longest time in the past 24 years, his family survived largely on the government’s child-support grant and the infrequent odd jobs he was offered by local home builders, such as the baking of bricks and digging of holes for the installation of septic tanks.
For him and his wife, Juliet, the situation is even dire now because their two children, aged 21 and 24, are off the SASSA child-support grant programme.
So, when Papa Penny – his neighbour, favourite local musician, former long-serving ANC councillor and uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP) Member of Parliament – called a community meeting where he announced what seemed to be an elaborate employment game changer in the village, especially for the unskilled, Nkwinika did not hesitate to throw his name in the hat.
But that also meant him ditching the ANC and joining Papa Penny’s party as MKP membership was a requirement to secure his place on the list of new farm recruits.
“I thought by so doing I would be able to alleviate the desperate situation at home and regain my dignity as a man. But, unfortunately, that was not to be as what was to follow was to be three weeks of hell on earth,” said Nkwinika.
He said on arrival at Endulini Fruit in the Eastern Cape more than 1 500km from Giyani, the farm’s bosses immediately showed the cohort of the 150 new recruits from Nkuri their true colours.“Everything that we had been promised before we left did not materialise. Although we had initially been told we would earn between R6 000 and R8 000 a month, the farm managers became evasive when we confronted them about the wages.
“Penny Penny had said before we left that Endulini Fruit would provide us with the necessary protective gear, such as boots, gloves and face masks, but this, too, did not materialise,”
The lack of face masks, he said, directly led to his health and that of other recruits being negatively affected by the chemicals used to treat the orange, lemon and naartjie trees from which they were expected to pluck the fruits.
“I coughed non-stop from then onwards with none of our superiors showing any concern about my health. I was taken care of by my fellow recruits from home. Even now since I came back I’m not OK. I’ve just arrived from the clinic to collect medication for my incessant cough,” Nkwinika said.
He described the living conditions at Endulini Fruit as “atrocious”.
“Sometimes we would go for two weeks without bathing because of the shortage of water. Sometimes we would just be given a mugful of water just to wash our faces. It was horrible,” Nkwinika said.
He said he felt betrayed by Papa Penny and the MKP, saying he was now weighing his options ahead of the 2026 local government elections.
WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO MY SON?
WHEN a 64-year-old Greater Giyani mother bade her son farewell as he boarded the bus to Endulini, Eastern Cape, to work on a citrus farm courtesy of Umkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP) MP Gezani Eric Kobane aka Penny Penny, she prayed to God for him to return home in one piece one day.
A month later 24-year-old Perseverance Mtileni is indeed back home at Zamani Village, Nkuri, in Limpopo but without a belly button after he was injured while picking fruit at Endulini Fruit in the Eastern Cape on May 9.
Mtileni told Weekly SA Mirror he was trying to reach a fruit in a lemon tree when he accidentally fell off a stepladder, landing stomach first on a sharp splinter of wood, injuring his belly button.
“It was around 3pm when the incident happened. Some of the foremen just walked past me as I lay there, writhing in pain, as if nothing had happened. Had it not been for my fellow recruits from home, who picked me up and took me back to the compound, I don’t know what would have happened to me,” said Mtileni, who is also known as Basopa.
“When we got the compound the guys from home asked our immediate superiors to arrange transport to take me to hospital, but their pleas were simply ignored. They then called Penny Penny to inform him about my situation, but he, too, was indifferent. He just told them that such incidents were to be expected in a work situation,” Mtileni said.
He said it was only after one of his homeboys called an ambulance that he was taken to Sundays Valley Provincial Hospital in Nqweba, about 125km from Endulini, at around 8pm – five hours after the incident.
He was in and out of hospital three times in one week at a great cost to his mother, Christina Manghani, who had to transfer money to him to settle his hospital bills and meet other needs, including taxi fares for travelling from Nqweba back to Endulini.
But Mtileni’s condition did not improve, hence his eventual decision to leave his job and return home to be close to his family.
It was a decision that was to prompt other recruits, who had already had enough of the alleged unfavourable working and living conditions on the farm, to do the same.
A day after his return to Nkuri, Mtileni was rushed to Nkhensani Hospital in Giyani as the pain in his stomach continued to cause him a lot of discomfort.
Due to the severity of his condition, doctors at the hospital recommended he be immediately transferred to Letaba District Hospital, where an operation was performed, resulting in the removal of his belly button. He spent more than six days at Letaba recuperating from the operation.
“My son has gone through hell. And for what? Cheap political expediency?
“I’m very upset with what they have done to my son. He doesn’t have a belly button now; his stomach is flat. Where have you ever heard of such a thing?” Mhangani asked.
She said the least that Penny Penny, MKP and Endulini Fruit could do was to pay her son for the entire six months he was supposed to be working on the farm and to compensate her for the trauma, emotional pain and financial loss she herself had endured.
Mhangani said what pained her even more was that Kobane had not even bothered to come and account to her about what happened to her son.
“Only a couple of people who work with him in MKP have come to me to ask after my son’s health. Nothing more,” she said.
Mtileni said what pained him more was that no one from MKP had reached out to him since the incident. “Penny Penny did call to wish me well. But he did not spend more than a minute speaking to me,” he said.
PAPA KEEPS MUM
WEEKLY SA Mirror, in line with basic journalism principles, gave Umkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP) MP Eric “Papa Penny” Kobane, the party’s head of media and communications Nhlamulo Ndhlela and Endulini Fruit managing director Pietie Ferreira ample opportunity to respond to the allegations levelled against them by Limpopo farm recruits.
WSAM first sent Ferreira a list of questions in a detailed email on Tuesday asking him to comment on several claims of broken promises, ill-treatment and neglect made by the farm recruits from Nkuri, in Greater Giyani.
We also asked him about the nature of the relationship between him and Kobane and, by extension, the MKP, and whether he himself was a member of the political party. But he did not respond.
Further attempts to reach him by phone over the following three days also failed, with his personal assistant saying he was “coming in and out of the office”. She refused to give us his cellphone numbers in accordance with company policy.
Both Kobane and Ndhlela were first contacted on Wednesday.
Kobane told us he was on a flight and would call us back as soon as he had landed. But he never did.
We called him again on Thursday but his phone rang unanswered. We followed up with a detailed voice note seeking answers to various allegations made against him and the party and to comment on the nature of his relationship with Endulini Fruit and whether the MKP was aware of it or enorsed it. Still he did not respond.
We posed similar questions to Ndhlela in a detailed WhatsApp message on Wednesday. He promptly acknowledged our inquiry, saying: “I will review and revert.” But he never did.
Attempts to reach him on his cellphone the following day were unsuccessful as it had been switched off.
