FOR a long time, people, especially bereaved children, have been facing the problem of dealing with greedy relatives who grab their property after their parents die.
As the issues of property grabbing have escalated, the government has been doing everything in its powers to ensure that the property which is left by the deceased is shared among the children but sadly, the older relatives especially uncles, brothers and sisters including those appointed as administrators, show no mercy to the bereaved children as they share all the properties leaving the children wallowing in poverty.
In most cases after the property is grabbed, the relatives do not keep the orphaned children and it is because of this that many have taken to the streets while the lucky ones remain with their grand parents if they are still alive.
While victims of property grabbers are children who are under the age of fending for themselves, older children have also been victims.
Recently, I escorted a friend to Chifubu Township where he went to pay his condolences to his uncle who had lost a wife in Lusaka.
When we reached my friend’s uncle’s residence, we found a number of people – men and women – who had also come from various places from within Ndola to pay their condolences to the bereaved family because they could not travel to Lusaka where the funeral was held.
We were seated outside paying our condolences when a woman pointed at a teenage girl who appeared to be very grief stricken and said that was one of the girls whose mother had passed away.
“Those people including that woman from South Africa have no mercy. The woman who died was just a house maid whose wages were peanuts and they want to get everything including the meager benefits which are supposed to go to the children,” the woman said while pointing at the girl who probably was in her teens.
Another woman in the group sadly shook her head before she commented that the woman from South Africa was the worst because she was the one who ruled that they share K1,900 benefits of the deceased equally as sisters.
Then another woman chipped in and explained that the sisters and their nieces (daughters to the deceased woman) nearly ‘exchanged punches’ over the issue of sharing the K1,900.
The woman from South Africa was the worst because she was the one who ruled that they share the K1,900 benefits equally as sisters! The sisters and their nieces nearly exchanged punches over the issue of sharing the K1,900! My ears were tickled and as an eavesdropper, I wanted to hear more.
It was while I was waiting to hear more when one of the men in the group wanted to know why the sisters and the nieces wanted to fight over K1,900.
Then the woman started to explain what had transpired at the funeral house in Lusaka a couple of months back.
According to her explanation, the woman who died was a maid at a residence in Lusaka.
She said when the woman died, her boss organized everything, including the buying of the coffin, transport to and from the cemetery and food for the mourners.
“Her boss also announced to the bereaved family members that their relative was also entitled to the benefits amounting to K1,900 for the nine years she had worked for his family as a maid,’’ explained the woman who I later came to know was an aunt to the deceased.
Then she continued: “it was the issue of K1,900 benefits which brought the kerfuffle. When she heard about the K1,900 benefits, the elder sister to the late said the money was to be shared equally among the three surviving sisters,”
She said on hearing this, the four surviving daughters of the late woman were not pleased because they thought they were the rightful persons to share the money since they were the biological daughters of the late woman.
“At this point the woman from South Africa threatened her late sister’s employer and told him that she would deal with him if she gave the money to anyone else apart from the three sisters ,’’narrated the woman.
She lamented that although the three sisters wanted to share their late sister’s benefits among themselves, their sister who was unmarried was survived by daughters and the three of them were old enough to fend for themselves while the other one was a teenager, they were still staying at their grand mother’s house.
Apart from the one from South Africa, all the other sisters stay at their mother’s house and their mother is very old,’’ explained the woman.
Another woman who had been quiet most of the time decided to help her friend in the talk.
According to her, the four children of the deceased depended on their mother for everything.
She said even on food, the four children were made to fend for themselves and they had to contribute to buy mealie meal and relish while the other family members were well provided for by their parents who had the means but were also sharing the house.
It was after the woman said this when another man wondered why the benefits of the deceased woman amounted to a meager K1,900 when she had worked for nine years.
“How could her employer only give K1,900 to the family as benefits? That is surely being cruel,’’ complained the man.
Then the woman who started the story explained that her sister-in-law’s employer told the family members at the funeral house that he was in fact  very kind for  him to even want to  give the employer K1,900 because if he was cruel, he would have deducted all the money which the deceased woman owed him.
She hinted that after the employer said this, many people at the funeral argued that the money was too little and one of the enlightened family members threatened that he would take the employer to court if he did not increase the money to a reasonable amount.
She explained that while many family members agreed that the benefits for their relative were too little, the sister from South Africa insisted that they get the K1,900 or else they would lose everything.
It was then that another man chipped in and said he wondered what kind of job the woman from South Africa was doing for her to insist that they get the K1,900 which was probably not even enough for her transport back to south Africa.
‘’That money is too little. If they had to share among the three of them, each one would only get about K630. I don’t think that would even take her back to South Africa,’’ commented the man.
Another woman advised that it would be better if that money was just given to their mother who was keeping their children (grand children).
The woman from South Africa was really selfish. How could she grab such little benefits from her own mother and nieces? I wondered.
For comments: potiphertembo2014@gmail.com.0955929796, 0966278597.