Dung woman to be charged with fraud

HIV-POSITIVE mother Sibongile Khumalo - who said she ate cow dung with her anti-retrovirals because she could not afford to buy food - has been arrested for defrauding the Department of Social Development.

Khumalo, 45, appeared in the Kwamsane Magistrate's Court, about 200km north of Durban, on Friday and was granted R500 bail. The case was postponed to Wednesday for further investigation.

Allegations in the police docket and court papers say Khumalo, who has one child, was receiving a monthly support grant for four children. Khumalo, who suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, had also allegedly continued to receive a disability grant, although it lapsed last year.

According to the SA Social Security Agency, the government pays R270 a month for each child for child support grants and a maximum of R1 140 a month for a disability grant.

Following Khumalo's arrest on Thursday the KwaZulu-Natal government demanded that the case be thoroughly investigated.

Last week the Sunday Times reported that Khumalo ate cow dung with her anti-retrovirals because she had been told to take the drugs after meals.

In the interview she and others who live in an informal settlement in Hluhluwe, about 240km north of Durban, said they were unable to get social grants because they did not have ID books.

Khumalo tested positive for HIV five years ago. She once earned R50 a day as a domestic worker but is now jobless. She claimed she ate dung five times a week, often mixing it with scraps of food collected from a dump site.

"I cannot take my anti-retroviral drugs on an empty stomach," she told the Sunday Times, adding that, although the dung was not an ideal supplement, it filled her stomach.

On Friday two non-governmental organisations - Qedusizi from Hluhluwe and Durban-based Akehlulwalutho - which often distribute food in the area, said the charges against Khumalo could scupper their plans to source food for other residents in the Tin Town settlement where she lives.

It is believed that more than 130 families in the settlement scrounge through refuse dumps and forage for dung on farms.

On Wednesday provincial economic development officials visited the settlement to establish the plight of residents.

Qedusizi founder Sibongile Mthembu, who delivers food parcels at least once a week to about 200 families, said the allegations against Khumalo had cast a cloud of doubt over the plight of the poverty-stricken residents.

Akehlulwalutho director Phacia Joye said it was a pity that the rest of the community could suffer.