Ephraim Nkosi went to Johannesburg to seek greener pastures. He was given the opportunity to own a house, and grabbed it with both hands. Little did he know that he had been swindled, as he tells DIMAKATSO MOTAU.

MY name is Ephraim Nkosi and I come from Piet Ritief in Mpumalanga. I’m a father of two and the first born child in a family of six. Our mother raised my siblings and me. I come from a very poor background, but we got all the love and support.
I think that is what kept us going even in difficult times. Nonetheless, life went on and I grew up to be the man I am today. My mother lost her job when I was in standard seven and that meant I had to drop out of school.
I was eager to complete my matric because, while growing up, I was told that education was the key to a successful life. When my mother was not working, as the first-born child, I was the one who had to leave school to find work to help support my family.
I had to hustle so that my younger siblings could continue with school and at least have a matric certificate. It didn’t sit well with me that I did not get the opportunity to complete my high school due to financial pressures.
But soon after that, I pulled myself together and realised that I was only trying to make life easier for my family as my mother had also sacrificed so much for all of us. There were no jobs, so I started working as an unskilled labourer  at construction sites in Johannesburg.
Even though I earned little, at least at the end of the month I had something to send back home. This relieved my stress levels –  it made me feel better knowing that my family went to bed with full stomachs.
I started saving a bit so that I could go to a driving school, with the hope of getting a better job with a better salary. In 1992, I got a job as a delivery driver with a furniture company. After nine months with them I had a car accident and they fired me.
I then found myself an agent who got me a job as a substitute driver. I was not happy with this job because I could not make long-term goals; each job lasted three weeks at most – I used to fill in for drivers who were on sick leave or had taken their annual leave.
This bothered me a lot, but my consolation was that at least I had some money coming in, which was better than being unemployed. That was until May, 2006, when I got a permanent job as a staff driver for one of the biggest retail supermarkets in the country. I am very happy because the prospects are good.
Since arriving in Johannesburg I had been renting property because it is not easy to buy a house; they are very expensive and getting a home loan also requires a lot of things.  So I met a guy at work who told me about a Mr Mbatha who was selling dilapidated houses whose former owners could not keep up with municipality payments, and houses could be repossessed.
I was told that the houses were reasonably priced. I was eager to meet this man, who could end my accommodation woes and make me a proud home owner. Off I went with my colleague to meet Mbatha, who was convincing. I did not suspect anything because even his workplace reflected that he was a legitimate businessman.
I then told him about my desire to buy two houses –  one for myself and the other to rent in order to supplement my salary. Mbatha told me each house would cost me R12,000 and that a R6,000 deposit was required before the house could be allocated to me.
I decided to use all my savings, from all the years I’ve been working, to purchase the houses. So, in February, 2007, I paid my first deposit of R5,000 deposit for my first house and R4,000 for the second one.
To me this was the best offer ever bacuse we all know houses don’t come cheap, especially these days. My younger brother was also interested and he paid R6,500 for his house. It all looked good that we finally had places of our own. All this money was paid between February and March, 2007.
At that time I was renting a room in Tembisa and by the end of March, 2007, I moved out to the address of my new home in Turffontein, south of Johannesburg. I did all my preparations before moving. When I got to the house, I found people occupying the house. They did not know who I was!
I told them that I had bought the house. They said I was not the only person who came there with belongings, claiming to have bought the house from an estate agent. I got the shock of my life: where was I supposed to go?
I called a few friends, who agreed to accommodate me for a few weeks until I sorted out my housing blues with my agent. I was so disappointed by my lack of judgment and carelessness – I had not checked with the relevant board if Mbatha was registered with them.
But I guess this was due to my naivety and the prospect of buying my own home at such a low price. I could not even face the mother of my children because how was I going to explain this and the money I had lost?
It got so bad that every week I went to Mbatha’s offices in downtown Johannesburg, but I always found his receptionist. I was told that he was not on the premises and that I should make an appointment in order to see him.
This went on for months and I realised that I was not the only victim – there were hundreds of us. As time went on, the offices were closed. All I could do was to go to the office whenever I found time and stand outside like everybody else, hoping that Mbatha would come and refund us our hard-earned cash.
I stayed with a friend for a few weeks, then I moved from one place to the next for about three months until I found a place in Berea. I have lost a lot of my belongings because of frequent moving and my possessions were scattered everywhere since I could not pay for storage.
I am not bitter because I am a God-fearing person and I hope that Mbatha will stop living off people’s sweat and attempt to earn a decent living like the rest of us. All I want is my money because I have a family I need to take care of, and the money I used was my children’s savings.
Finally, I went to the police station to open a case of fraud, but they were not very helpful and kept asking me if I knew where he lived because if they were to charge and arrest him, they needed his physical address.
I could not provide them with that information because I knew very little about Mbatha and I did not question him a lot as I had met him through a trusted colleague. The other policeman said in my case, most of the perpetrators did not use their real names and it could take forever to track them down.
It was painful hearing that because it meant that my money was gone forever. Still, I am hopeful that we will find Mbatha and all my money will be returned.
Courtesy of REAL magazine of South Africa.
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