Woman fakes death to claim burial society money. Members of the Kutlwano Youth Club were horrified when it recently emerged that a member had been faking deaths in her family to claim burial society money. Members of the club, which was started in Tembisa in Ekurhuleni 20 years ago, claimed the member had even been faking death certificates.
Each member is allowed cover for 10 family members and pays R200 a month for this. When a family member dies the society pays out R7 000 for the burial. Members are also allowed to replace family members when they want.
The woman is said to have claimed R14 000 this year. Then, when she claimed for the third time in nearly two weeks, the society decided to delay the payout to investigate.
Anna Ramolobeng of the society’s finance department said they decided to investigate the matter when they were approached by another burial society the woman was also claiming from.
Anna said on Wednesday they went to Home Affairs and found that the ID numbers on two of the death certificates the woman had submitted were invalid.
A third one belonged to a person with a different name and who was still alive. “We could not attend the funerals of the first two alleged deaths in her family because she said they lived in Limpopo.
“She said the third person lived in Swaziland,” said Anna. She said the woman denied the accusations when she was confronted on Friday, but promised to pay back the money.
She claimed the woman was dismissed from the society and they would open a case against her. The accused woman said she was not lying. “The death certificates were sent by my family.
“I will personally take it up with Home Affairs to find out what went wrong,” she said.
Source: Daily Sun
