CITIZENS’ ADVICE BUREAU
Pretoria
ANNUAL REPORT
Apr 2007- Mar 2008
Citizens' Advice Bureau
IDASA Kutlwanong Democracy Centre
357 Visagie St, Pretoria
PO Box 56950, Arcadia, 0007
Tel: 012 322 6630/1; Fax: 012 320 2114
[email protected]; www.cab.org.za
REPORT FOR PERIOD 1 APRIL 2007 - 31 MARCH 2008
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Chairperson:
Vice Chairperson
Treasurer:
Secretary:
Members:
Mrs R McGillivray
Mrs J Rubin
Prof G McGillivray
Mrs N Hart
Mrs L Nchabaleng (ex officio)
Mrs P Kraft
Mrs E Sibanyoni
Dr JP Hugo
Mrs V Rajah
Mrs L Thomo
Fr Russell Campbell
Mrs L Jurriaanse
OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR
Mrs L Nchabaleng
VOLUNTARY WORKERS
Chairperson
Secretary:
Mrs W.Rensen
Mrs G Collett
Roster Duties
Mr H Ackermann
Mrs S Allott
Mrs C Bussi
Mrs G Collett
Mrs D Dean
Mrs M Dorling
Mrs M Eidelberg
Mrs N Hart
Dr JP Hugo
Mrs L Jurriaanse
Mrs P Mashifane
Mrs R McGillivray
Mrs M Nürnberger
Mrs W Rensen
Mrs J Rubin
Mrs E Sibanyoni
Mrs A Snyman
Mrs L Thomo
Information Group
Mrs G Stevens
Mrs K Cokayne
Mrs G Collett
Mrs A Meintjes
LEGAL PANEL
Mr M Coetzee
Mr N de Villiers
Ms L du Plessis
Mr W Koekemoer
ANALYSIS OF ENQUIRIES 2007/2008
EMPLOYMENT 2070
Situations
Wages
UIF
Pensions
Compensation
Unfair Dismissals
HOUSING
82
Accommodation
Eviction
Rent/Lease
Purchase/Sale/Transfer
Neighbours
Administration
FAMILY
82
Marriage/Divorce
Welfare
Maintenance
Children
Addictions
Missing Persons
FINANCIAL
540
Loans/Banks
Debt
Fraud
Insurance/Tax
Death/Wills/Estates
Accident Claims
REGISTRATION
53
Birth/Death/Marriage
ID/Passport
Trade Licence
Residence/Asylum
AGED
9
Accommodation
Pensions
Employment
Concessions/Assistance
LEGAL
167
Action/Advice
Court Cases
Lawyer Complaints
Police
Prison
Constitution
EDUCATION
17
Education/Training
Funding
Vocational Guidance
Adult Education
Educational Enterprises
New
31
109
27
75
18
52
Repeat
66
509
130
718
132
203
6
17
3
2
0
1
8
12
12
15
2
4
7
4
4
2
0
3
29
17
11
5
0
0
8
21
7
4
19
11
59
66
26
24
238
57
0
9
0
1
7
20
15
1
0
1
0
0
2
5
0
1
20
0
3
8
2
0
57
34
12
16
14
1
4
0
0
0
0
4
5
4
0
0
APPEALS
32
Destitute
Transport
Nursing/Baby sit
Befriending
MISCELLANEOUS 42
Information
LEISURE
1
Hobbies/Sport
Social
Travel/holidays
MEDICAL
83
Services
Disability Pensions
Mental Health
Sex
Medical Aid/Accounts
Physical Abuse
MUNICIPAL
24
Rates/Accounts
Pollution/Noise
Services/Problems
Traffic Dept
Regulations
CONSUMER
34
Advice/Information
Complaints
Legislation
Repairs
Business
OFFERS OF HELP
5
Volunteers
Disposal of Goods
Services
REFUGEES
45
Labour/Pensions
Asylum/ID/Permits
Accommodation
Legal/Police
Family/Welfare
Financial
NEW CASES
REPEAT CASES
TOTAL CASE COUNT
Telephone Cases
Daily Case Average
Disbursements for Cases
New
9
1
0
0
Repeat
20
2
0
0
16
26
0
0
1
0
0
0
2
6
0
2
0
0
41
22
8
2
0
0
1
0
2
2
0
6
0
9
3
1
2
2
0
5
0
6
5
2
10
2
1
2
0
1
1
0
4
1
6
2
5
4
9
1
4
0
7
2
555
2,731
3,286
1,264
14
R191,133
CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT
It is a pleasure to report to you on the activities of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau for
the period April 2007 to March 2008.
Little did we know, as we celebrated our 40th anniversary last year, what a
momentous year of change our 41st would be.
In August 07 and after only six months in the post, our new administrative
secretary resigned. This was such a blow – we had made an affirmative action
appointment and it was working really well for our organisation, our clients and
our voluntary workers. Unfortunately personal circumstances demanded that
she should find a full time post, something we ourselves could not afford to offer.
Shortly after this, we received notice from the Dean of St Albans Cathedral
terminating our lease. I’m sure many of us wondered whether the Citizens’
Advice Bureau would survive. After looking at various premises in the CBD and
being helped by several good friends, we were offered premises at IDASA and
moved in during mid December. This has proven a very good move. We find
ourselves in small but very pleasant offices and surrounded by many excellent
citizens working in various NGO’s – IDASA itself, Lawyers for Human Rights,
with whom we have a comfortable co-operative relationship, Amnesty
International, VSO and several others. The facilities available to us include a
board room and conference rooms, a cafeteria and a resources centre, a
manned reception, secure parking and technical advisors. We retained our
phone numbers but lost two weeks of work in January while we waited for
transfer of the telephone lines.
Of course the move impacted our clients – we were not in a position to inform
them all of the change and had to rely on the Cathedral staff to redirect clients.
We have also garnered many new clients as word spreads and as we build new
synergies with various organisations.
In dealing with our move I must pay tribute to two exceptionally generous friends
of the Citizens’ Advice Bureau. – firstly to Mrs Ann Berman of CHG Function Hire
who moved our office furniture and files free of charge and so efficiently. And
then I pay tribute to our friend of long standing Dr Ronald Ingle, who on hearing
of our move and the increased rental, gave a donation to cover our rent for a
whole year. Thank you so much to both of you.
We are still struggling to find new volunteers and particularly black ones. In
May last year we were joined by Portia Mashifane, who is a trained social worker.
It has been great having someone like her on board with her very pertinent skills
and knowledge.
In January we received a suggestion from the Legal Aid Board that we should
host a candidate attorney one day per month. It has been very good for us to
have another lawyer in house and one who speaks our indigenous languages.
We are beginning to understand that the path to getting black volunteers lies
partly in building relationships with other organisations.
Our work continues as before. The move definitely impacted our client numbers,
but they are gradually increasing. As before, the large majority of our cases are
labour related and many involve helping our clients get their pension
contributions back or getting back unpaid salaries. This is a comment on both
the pensions fund administration companies and on employers, often from small
businesses. The other large and related category we have handled this past
year is estates and the payment of death benefits.
We are moving on the technical front too. With the help of our good friends the
Richters a Website has been set up for us, www.cab.org.za and we are gradually
learning how to populate it. We hope this will bring us a new and different
clientele.
Fundraising continues to be a struggle, as it is for many NGO’s. We would
really like to recruit a young and energetic volunteer experienced in such things
to do the fund raising. We have approached various people we know. It seems
that most people who used to do fundraising now offer courses for a do-ityourself approach. So we continue to seek out sympathetic people and
organisations and to define projects for funding requests. I wish to
acknowledge two very generous donations during the year, one from our exvoluntary worker Dana Dean and her husband Owen on their move to the Cape,
and one an anonymous donation. We are most grateful to both.
I also wish to acknowledge two of our honorary members who passed on in this
last year. Mr Robin Bryant was our honorary auditor until 2003, a period of
about 35 years. We are most grateful for his support over all those years. And
then Canon Tsebe, who passed away in December. He gave to our
organisation regularly every year and often dropped in himself to talk with the
voluntary workers or sent his daughter. We extend our condolences to the
families of both these members.
Lastly, a special thank you to all the voluntary workers, those who do counselling,
those who do information work and those who sit on our Executive Committee.
This past year has been especially demanding on you all. Each of you has been
asked and has given extra time in some way or other to our NGO. With no
administrative secretary some of you have taken on extra tasks on a longer term
basis. I am most grateful for your dedication to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau and
I thank you.
Rose McGillivray
CHAIRPERSON, VOLUNTARY WORKERS REPORT
VOLUNTEERING.
It is well known that to work for a non profit organisation is hard work but very
rewarding. You have to have a calling to do voluntary work. It is not for the faint
hearted and stress is high sometimes. At CAB our voluntary workers have to
work as in a private sector organisation but often with more responsibilities. We
produce a professional service under difficult circumstances. But at the end of
the day it all goes about service to the people. What also makes charity work
special is what ever you do has a direct impact on somebody’s life.
CAB is still deeply in need of voluntary helpers especially those with black
language skills – there are people in need of you. What about some real
consideration of serving your community in this way? There is no greater joy
than finding for others what they so desperately need.
To all our voluntary workers who throughout the year took responsibility,
sometimes more than once a week, for their duties, for their inputs at our
meetings and the wonderful results of cases we handled , a big THANK YOU!
Your service is par excellence!
Willy Rensen
REPORT ON TRAINING AND LEGAL CLUSTER MEMBERSHIP
The Legal Cluster was established after receiving funding from AULAI (the
Association of University Legal Aid Institutions) and named the Tshwane-OdiMoretele-Brits Cluster in recognition of the advice/para-legal organisations which
made up the original membership in 2003. The primary objective was to provide
direct access to the correct legal institutions, by these organisations, which would
provide appropriate help in the respective legal problem for their clients - those
unable to afford private attorneys.
To ensure that the para-legal and adviser personnel handling the public enquiries
understood fully the legal and sociological implications of the problems presented
in the office situation, excellent workshops were offered to us by the Cluster at
the Law Faculty of Pretoria University. CAB was always well represented by our
Voluntary Workers at the workshops which were offered free of charge on
Saturday mornings, including tea and lunch, where participants could also share
case experiences and meet socially.
This financial year saw a variety of topics presented beginning with: “The Current Legal Position on Cohabitation in South Africa” presented by
attorney, Kathleen Monareng, emphasising the vulnerability of those who






chose this option rather than marriage and including a background
scenario on the state of marriage today;
“The Legislative Framework - an overview of - the National Credit Act”
given by the Director of the Legal Aid Clinic at the University, Mr
Franciscus Haupt, with a view to training Counsellors;
“Workers’ Compensation” given by Ms Paula Howell the experienced
specialist in this subject from the Legal Resources Centre;
the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and Compensation for
Occupational Injuries and Diseases (COIDA) presented by the Dept of
Labour which excited vigorous input from participants, some of whom
wanted the Cluster to lobby lawmakers for more lenient conditions;
“Maintenance and Aspects of Domestic Violence” by Advocate Daniel
Thulare, head of Johannesburg Family Court;
“Housing and Related Matters” of the Tshwane Municipality by Messrs
Rathete, Eskort and Ms Williams; all introduced and organised by the
Cluster Coordinator, Mr Jake Gededja.
The Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) in
Pretoria presented a workshop titled “The Code of Good Practice - Who is
an Employee” - very relevant for CAB who handle mostly employment
problems. Sadly, none of our Voluntary Workers were available for their
second workshop “How to Use the CCMA and the Law - Best Practice
Workshop”.
An excellent comprehensive referral manual for advice offices, prepared
previously, was unable to be printed for distribution owing to financial constraints.
The CAB case used by the Legal Resources Centre to motivate a change in
aspects of Labour Law at the Labour Court was discontinued. The hoped for
forum exploring inter-advice office discussions did not materialise. These were
our failures.
QUALITY CONTROL OF CASE WORK
The checking of daily case reports and the concomitant statistics constitutes an
essential part of quality control. By studying the reports of cases handled at the
bureau each day, I expect to see: where there are gaps in our information;
 needs for Legal input;
 where more thorough investigation into a case is recommended;
 where omissions occur in reports and/or interviews;
 needs for possible alternative action;
 note the movement of a case;
 success, conclusion and shortcomings of a case; etc.
All the points noted from the reports and Diary entries are collected each month
and discussed as a document at the monthly Voluntary Worker Meetings. In this
way we can assess gaps in our information and needs for specific future training.
As seen from the statistics, repeat cases greatly exceed new cases, meaning a
case is rarely concluded in one “sitting” but must be followed-up with further input
to realise closure. The original voluntary worker will probably not be the person
who follows-up, hence full, accurate reports are needed to facilitate a case’s
progress. Where many reports constitute a file, the Checking facility is desirable
as a guard against error.
Example:
A boarded nurse had applied for a refund of her pension, years ago, but no
progress was made. Since the Fund was unpaid and no income was earned,
payments on the house bond stopped and the property was eventually sold by
the bank and eviction demanded by the new purchaser in quest of possession.
Acute stress exacerbated the health problem of the client. Her former employer
(government) sent payment documents to the Government Pension Fund but
these could not be acted on by the Fund because the member (nurse) refused to
sign, alleging that untruths were stated therein. Hence closure - and payment could not occur. Funds raised by cashing a policy were paid to the municipality
for account arrears rather than to the bank to save the house! Attempts to arrest
the court action to remove the distraught client from her house using attorneys
were initiated. Eventually all the ducks were assembled and the pension paid
out, but it took much work and careful Checking throughout to line those up.
Judy Rubin
MEMBERS
ANNUAL MEMBERS
Ms J Blake
Mrs Y Bulling
Ms K Cokayne
Fr R Campbell
Mrs J de Beer
Dr ASM de Jesus
Dr B de Winter
Mrs M Dorling
Ms M Eidelberg
Mr LHM Gill
Mr N Hart
Mrs J Janisch
Ms J Kearney
Mrs J Meintjes
Adv JF Mullins
Mr & Mrs KT Nicholson
Mrs V Orrock
Mr G Plant
Ms JBL Rae
Mrs A Rethman
Mrs J Rubin
Prof I Snyman
Mrs G Stevens
Ms K Wallis
SPONSORING MEMBERS
Mrs G Collett
Ms MM Dreyer
Dr S Hart
Dr JP Hugo
Ms L Jurriaanse
Ms P Kraft
Prof A Louw
Adv & Mrs JF Mullins
Ms RJ Ott
Mr KT Nicholson
Mrs W Rensen
Dr O Rubin
Prof SA Snyman
Mrs AD Toens
Mrs S vd Westhuizen
CORPORATE SPONSORING MEMBERS
Miller Engineering
Meyer Steel Construction (Pty) Ltd
LIFE MEMBERS
Mr C Bebington
Catholic Archdiocese of Pretoria
Canon & Mrs IR Carrick
Mrs L Chalmers
Christian Brothers College
Mr D de Beer
Mrs F de Kock
Mrs H Denk
Mrs P Dennis
Franciscan Community
Mr & Mrs R Hazzard
Dr R Hansen
Holy Cross Convent Community
Dr RF Ingle
LCM Hospital Community
Leyds Congregational Church
Mrs L Moolman
Mr H Moor
Mrs J Neser
Prof & Mrs KT Nürnberger
Mrs H Penzhorn
Mrs J Richter
Mr & Mrs PJ Roux
Mr HBH Scott
St John Vianney Community
St Paulus Klooster Community
Mrs L Stanton
Mrs J Swanson
Mr & Mrs K Tait
Mrs M Terblanche
Mr & Mrs HJC Twyford
Dr MJ van der Linde
Miss CJ White
Dr & Mrs AAB Williams
Prof JA Wolfaard
HONORARY MEMBERS
Mr RM Bryant
Rev D Narraway
Canon J Tsebe
DONATIONS
Anon
Mrs Y Bulling
Fr R Campbell
FC Chamberlain Pty Ltd
CHG Function Hire
Mr MSL Coetzee
Ms K Cokayne
Mr & Mrs B Collett
Dr & Mrs O Dean
Ms J de Beer
Dr A de Jesus
Dr & Mrs B de Winter
Ms MM Dreyer
Mrs EM Grobbelaar
Dr & Mrs S Hart
Ms T Henkel
Dr JP Hugo
DR R Ingle
Mrs J Janisch
Mrs J Kearney
Mrs P Kraft
Estate late Mrs Y Lorenz
Prof A Louw
Mrs E Malan
Mrs J Meintjies
Adv & Mrs J Mullins
Prof K Nürnberger
Mrs M Nurnberger
Mr & Mrs GA Page
Ms M Richter
Prof I Snyman
Mrs G Stevens
Mrs T Stewart
Tuesday Forum
Mrs S van der Westhuizen
CAB Voluntary Workers
CHURCHES
Catholic Archdiocese, Pretoria
Christ Church Arcadia
Corpus Christi Church
Maria Regina Catholic Church
St Francis Church
St Martins Church
St Thomas Church
St Wilfrids Church