Africa-Press – Eswatini. Bunye Betfu Savings and Credit Cooperatives Society’s staff have been dragging each other to court over witchcraft claims.
This follows that members of staff within the public sector-membered cooperative have been hurling insults at each other, bordering on allegations of witchcraft and witches within the institution.
So serious are the accusations that five employees have opened cases of crimen-injuria against each other.
Among the five, being Fikile Hlophe, Thabo Shabangu, Pholile Mkhatshwa, Gcinaphi Dlamini and Simphiwe Simelane, there are impending counter claims of insulting and calling each other witches.
The Bunye Betfu Chairperson of the Board, Nomphumelelo Nkambule, has found herself having to attend the court cases. One of the employees has been accused by four employees of cleaning floors using unknown substances while claiming that it was meant to cleanse the office of bad omen.
The employee is also accused of spreading word that others were burning incense within the working area.
In an interesting twist of events, however, the accused employee then filed her own charges against each of the four, accusing one of the four of calling her a witch.
In literal terms, the employee accused the colleague of calling her ‘tsekwane’, among other derogatory names.
Investigation
The employees appeared at the Mbabane National Court before Chief Mgebiseni, who suspended the matter pending internal investigations by the Bunye Betfu leadership.
However, this was after the charge sheet had been read out to all of them.
The charge sheet of one of the employees states that one female of 40 years of Buka under Chief Mvandazi ‘is charged with the offence of crimen injuria in that upon or about the month of November 2020 on or upon Bunye Betfu in the Hhohho region, the said accused person did wrongfully and intentionally insult (name withheld) by saying ‘ungumtsakatsi, uyatsakatsa’ and thus injured and impaired the dignity of the said employee’.
The employee faces five counts of crimen injuria filed by her colleagues while she also opened her own against each one of them.
The same employee was accused of having called the other four ‘batsakatsi’ (witches) in November 2020. Also, the employee was charged with the same count directed to one of the four by alleging that they were was using muti on the company vehicle (‘utsakatsa ikhumbi yemsebenti’) in March 2020. The employee then laid another charge, accusing one of the four of having insulted her by calling her a lunatic ‘uluhlanya’.
They, however, left the court dejected after the Court President, Chief Mgebiseni, postponed the matter pending internal investigations by the Bunye Betfu leadership. The court president said these were serious accusations that needed the input of the office to inform the court if such issues had initially been brought to its attention.
Chief Mgebiseni insisted that calling someone a witch with no evidence to substantiate those claims was a punishable offence, which he said the court would not shun away from but would allow the pending investigation to be completed.
He assured the parties that the court took the decision to postpone the hearing upon getting information that Bunye Betfu was handling the matter internally.
The matter is expected to proceed later this month after getting the Bunye Beftu’s Board findings, which are to be presented by the cooperative to the court.
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