Residents enter the St Michael’s home for women in Sydenham, Durban. Photo by Des Erasmus
Years-long discord about living conditions and governance failures affecting three retirement facilities in Durban came to a head when residents took to the streets on a sweltering December morning, brandishing placards demanding a new board and management, insisting that they would no longer allow themselves to be “neglected”.
The initial desperation of residents at the nonprofit-run St Michael’s, St Gabriel’s and Mary Asher homes — built on eThekwini municipality land in the working-class suburb of Sydenham — had, by mid-December, morphed into “outrage”, they told the Mail & Guardian.
The saga is a cautionary tale for seemingly lax or unscrupulous NGOs and a department of social development so disorganised that it appears indifferent to the needs of older people.
The residents are being supported by a small group of community leaders and ward councillor Remona Mckenzie who — at the request of the pensioners — formed a task team to investigate the affairs of The Durban Council of South African Women (DBNCSAW), the nonprofit that runs the homes.
The task team has accused the council of a litany of administrative failures, including non-compliance with South Africa’s Nonprofit Organisations (NPO) Act and non-compliance with its own constitution.
The council board has accused the task team of “harassing our residents”, trying to “cripple this organisation in order to take it over in your beds for votes scheme” and spreading disinformation about the homes, board and management.
The more than 50 residents the M&G spoke to said they were in full support of the task team.
The publication is not naming any of the residents it interviewed, all of whom had the same complaints, one of the most pressing being the “lack of transparency” regarding financials, board appointments and operations, and not being consulted on nominations or appointments.
By its own admission, the council has not held an AGM since 2018-19, placing it in contravention of statutory requirements under the NPO Act. When approached by the M&G in late November, then facilities manager Marie-Therese Naidoo defended the lapse, attributing it to “administrative challenges” and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Soon after the M&G sent questions to the DBNCSAW, including about the failure to hold an AGM, one was scheduled for 12 December. But the apparently hastily convened meeting was set to be “virtual”, which would require the residents — who are on state pensions — to live-stream the meeting.
The virtual AGM was postponed. “[The department of social development] will give the organisation support [with] an AGM in January 2025,” DBNCSAW chairperson Charmaine Jood told the M&G.
Jood has denied any mismanagement at the homes and instead has directed her ire at the task team, which she banned from entering the premises in July, in a written letter the M&G has seen. She also tried to stop the December protest, to no avail.
“We ultimately want to manage the homes together with a team of working committee members,” task team member Trudi-Lee Low-Shang said. “We have no desire to ‘take over’. We want a board that is accountable and that will lead a team successfully.”
Low-Shang said the task team had a financial team and working committee ready to assist with running the homes.
“The financial team will be undertaking a full needs analysis on each resident. A health and safety official will assess each resident’s needs in terms of their living conditions, we have already prioritised the immediate need,” she said, adding that the task team had a matron, qualified carer and fundraising team who would start their work when the current board left.
A major source of resident and task team unease is the DBNCSAW’s refusal to provide financial statements, a legal obligation under the NPO Act. Residents say that despite repeated requests, they have been denied insight into the organisation’s financial health.
The DBNCSAW sent the M&G some of the “independently audited” financials requested, which appeared to be signed off by a registered auditor. But according to the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA), the individual listed as the auditor is not registered, in contravention of the Auditing Profession Act.
It is understood that the IRBA has referred the matter to its legal department. The M&G was unable to make contact with the auditor.
This “ongoing” opacity is particularly concerning, said residents, given unresolved financial difficulties, such as unpaid utility bills that have on three occasions led to municipal threats of electricity disconnections.
The council alleges it is owed more than R100 000 in unpaid rent from 12 residents, some of whom have reportedly not made payments since February 2024. It claims this is why it has had difficulty paying its electricity bill.
“The organisation was therefore obliged to sign a credit agreement with revenue services of eThekwini municipality to pay off the debt, to make payments more affordable and to secure continued access to utility services for all facilities,” Naidoo said.
But residents and the task team have disputed this claim, asserting that rent is typically paid on time, and that there is only one resident who is refusing to pay.
The residents also raised concerns about perceived favouritism in rental rates. They allege that rent levels appear to vary arbitrarily, with some residents receiving preferential treatment based on “personal relationships with management/the board”.
According to residents, some pay R850 a month, and others R1 500. The provincial department of social development said 90 residents live at the three homes. Income from rentals could tally as much as R135 000 a month, should all residents be charged R1 500.
Naidoo denied disparities based on favouritism, saying that rent was determined by operational costs at each home.
The lack of a clear and transparent rental scale fuelled suspicions, as has the fact that despite management and the board lamenting a shortage of funds there are, according to residents, 10 empty rooms among all three homes, which could be leased.
Living conditions
At St Michael’s and St Gabriel’s, which the M&G visited at the request of residents, borer damage is rife.
Gutters have fallen down, paint is peeling, window latches are loose, windows are cracked and taps leak in bathrooms and communal kitchen areas; while mould is rife.
But Naidoo said that over the past year, the DBNCSAW has replaced several doors, fixed defective door locks, replaced windows and geysers, removed some borer-damaged wardrobes and damp-sealed and painted several rooms.
Residents disputed that these repairs were done, saying what was done were allegedly “quick fix, cheap jobs”.
Naidoo said plans were in place to do other repairs once funding was secured.
At St Michael’s, the residents are prohibited from using communal kitchen facilities equipped with donated stoves.
“The use of the stoves is going to increase municipal costs, and the short-term plan is to install gas stoves and ovens to be used for fundraising purposes. Some residents are using their own stoves in their rooms,” said Naidoo, seemingly unaware of the health risks associated with cooking in small bedrooms.
Despite the current board sitting for about six years, and a new management team being in place for close to a year, there is no fundraising team. One is being “initiated”, Naidoo said.
There was also no money for tenting or even pest control, she said. “This can only be completed once funds are secured.”
The NPO admitted it does not hold a compliance certificate from the social development department. Naidoo said it would submit the necessary documents for the 2023-24 period, but did not clarify why this was overlooked.
Residents say the lack of a compliance certificate underscores broader issues of mismanagement. “It’s hard to trust management when they aren’t even fulfilling basic legal obligations,” one said.
The department told the M&G that the DBNCSAW was first reported to it in 2017, prior to the previous board being “voted out” and the current board being installed.
But residents say that this was illegally done, given that five of the newly elected board members were not included in notifications to attend board meetings. All of the residents the M&G spoke to deem the board “illegitimate”.
There are only three board members — Jood, Patricia Isaacs and Charmaine Henry. Isaacs lives in a room at the St Gabriel’s home, allegedly rent-free, although it is supposed to be reserved for single men on pension.
Poor oversight
The department itself has much to answer for in the ongoing saga, given that by its own admission it has known about unhappiness and allegations of neglect at the homes for about seven years.
It told the M&G that the nonprofit had “been registered with eight outstanding annual compliance reports” and that despite the new board, there were “continued … challenges”.
The department said it sent a team to do inspections at the homes on 30 November and 12 December 2023 in response to allegations of abuse. These included residents being sworn at, threatened with eviction if they supported the task team, and 70 and 80-year-olds having to scrub and clean communal facilities.
“During this visit, an engagement was done with the residents and they denied the allegations of abuse,” the department said.
When the task team tried to enter the homes earlier this year for a pre-convened meeting, they were denied access by one resident who is apparently close to Jood. The police had to intervene.
The department said it conducted a “monitoring visit” at Mary Asher on 14 August, along with Naidoo. “On the day of the visit, the home was neat and tidy. Engagement with a few residents on the day were done and the residents expressed their happiness in the facility,” said the department.
But it also told the M&G that during the same visit, the NPO did not furnish it with “crucial records” such as a tax clearance certificate and lease agreements. These are documents the task team had been calling for, for months.
On 15 August, the department visited St Michael’s and St Gabriel’s. It said the homes were clean but both required “major renovations”.
At a follow-up meeting on 19 August, residents told department officials that there was no cleaner at the facilities, and that one had been brought in to clean before the department’s visit. Residents used their state pensions to buy cleaning materials for communal areas and cleaned these themselves, they said.
At a virtual meeting with the three board members and Naidoo, on 21 August, the department asked that it be provided with the constitution of the organisation, AGM documents, annual financial statements and a tax clearance certificate.
“The board has submitted these with the exception of the audited financial statements and tax clearance certificate,” the department said.
It would be “rendering support” to residents that included “engaging with” the DBNCSAW on “issues of governance”, which including holding an AGM, an implementation plan on the department’s findings after its visits, and “an income and expenditure report into the finances of the organisation and transparency on the utilisation of the resident’s grant money has been requested for submission”. A resident’s committee was also to be established for all three homes.
The department did not provide timelines for any of the interventions.
After initially answering the M&G’s emailed queries, Naidoo said she was “unavailable” to respond to follow-up questions, and directed those to Jood, who did not respond.
Asked by the M&G in December when she was going to respond, Jood said: “As you may know, we are in a very busy period at the organisation from the announcement of [the] protest, dealing with angry residents, having to calm scared residents, preparing for the AGM etc,”
Naidoo had resigned, she said, “leaving the board to deal with operations”.
