Court told of pauper’s funeral plan for boy
Social worker insists state tried to help family
Social workers had arranged for Michael Komape to be given a pauper’s burial after his death in 2014.
This emerged in the Limpopo High Court yesterday, where a senior official who supervised social workers around Polokwane gave testimony.
Reina Molapo was the first witness to be called by lawyers representing the Department of Basic Education in the ongoing R3-million civil lawsuit lodged by Komape’s family against the state.
Michael’s family is demanding compensation after the five-year-old drowned in a pit latrine at Mahlodumela Primary School in Chebeng village near Polokwane in 2014.
The department’s legal team is disputing the family’s version that the government never assisted with counselling and funeral costs.
Yesterday Molapo testified that officials from the provincial department of social development visited the family on five occasions to offer counselling.
Molapo said during their first visit on January 22 2014, Michael’s mother, Rosina, informed them that she had no money to bury her child.
Molapo said upon hearing this she wrote a report and made an urgent request for the family to be assisted with a pauper’s funeral.
Molapo said on the second visit Rosina told them not to go ahead with the state-assisted burial because a local undertaker had offered to help them.
Later the family’s lawyer, Advocate Vincent Maleka, questioned Molapo about her claims of having counselled the family.
Maleka said Rosina had testified that the family never received counselling from government social workers.
Molapo said this was not true, adding that they had arrived at the family home and introduced themselves before counselling the family.
“I don’t think she [Rosina] would lie voluntarily, she was probably overwhelmed by the number of people in that house,” she said.
Maleka also pressed Molapo to explain exactly how they had counselled Rosina.
“I comforted her. I gave her tissues and told her that accidents happen,” Molapo said.
She said when they arrived at the family home Rosina was in a state of shock.
“She was hysterical and tearful. It was not easy for her to accept what had happened,” she said.
Maleka put it to Molapo that she could not prove that they had conducted five visits to the family because she testified that she was only present during the first two occasions.
Molapo said there were written reports documenting the visits, however, Maleka said such reports were never brought before the court.
When asked about the pauper’s burial Molapo said: “I don’t know what you understand about a pauper’s funeral.
“A pauper burial is standard and is offered to any person in South Africa. It is not an indecent kind of burial.”
The trial continues.