Recently Daily Maverick's Rebecca Davis wrote about the severe dysfunction at the Cape Town Master's Office (see Groundup's investigation 2019). Among other problems, Davis reported staff allegedly demanding payment from users to speed up paperwork and bypass queues. I'm curious why this is new news.
She omitted to mention the Justice Department has known about this for a long time. In January 2022 then deputy minister John Jeffery made an "unannounced" visit and was "surprised" (sic) it was not operating effectively.
My mother died in July 2017 and the Master has still not finalised her will. The executor has had to submit the same documents numerous times (apparently they're getting lost) and make numerous visits, all in vain. In December 2021, at his suggestion, I emailed the master, Zureena Agulhas, to complain. She forwarded my email to staff directing them to attend to the matter. Only then, four years after the will was lodged, did he receive a letter of executorship - the letter of authority in other words - from the Master.
To Agulhas I also complained of my mother's estate - her heirs really - having to pay R18,000 insurance, R6,000 a year until that point, standard insurance to exempt the executor from liability. I told her that had they completed the job within the time set out in the Estates Act, six months, this would have been unnecessary. I said we refused to pay more.
The executor said white staff appear more amenable to help. From his visits, he can't see what staff are getting up to cause these headaches; it appears they shift documents from one pile to the next where they're forgotten. How long does it take to put a stamp on a document to finalise the matter? (According to Davis' sources, bribery appears to help.) Note my mother's will is simple and uncontested with only one asset, the value of which does not attract estate taxes. In other words, a simple matter.
Early 2022 I wrote to Jeffery complaining about the Master. There was no reply. It's clear Agulhas too is not functioning and that the Justice Department doesn't care. That is the angle media should be exploring. But I suspect the media, generally ANC and Ramaphosa apologists and mouthpieces, don't want to explore too deeply lest what they find.
On a related matter, Cape Town Inquests Court too is not functioning - there is a long case backlog or cases are not being heard. My mother's "unnatural causes" death case, sent to the court around April 2018, is in limbo. The NPA and Court don't reply to my annual emails about its status.
However, a couple of years ago a Cape Town Justice Department staff member was unusually forthcoming. She said the case was due to be heard the previous year but the magistrate and assessor(s) refused to work for the "disgraceful" amount offered. Around that time the magistrates' association stated they could not survive on their salaries of over R1 million a year. In 2021 a Woodstock detective, themselves remiss in the case, advised me to hire a lawyer to pursue the matter, basically litigate the state - to do their jobs.mOnly in South Africa.
The chaotic, dysfunctional and corrupt Cape Town Master's Office is again in the news. The fact that nothing has changed in years proves the Justice Department, GNU and government as a whole doesn't give a damn. This too is not news. Another example, another crack in the the edifice of what makes a state and a year closer to South Africa becoming a failed state by 2030.
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