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Tree oil scam hits stokvel

CONNED: Amelia April and Nhlanhla Mthethwa bought moringa trees and have yet to receive their money Photo: Vathiswa Ruselo
CONNED: Amelia April and Nhlanhla Mthethwa bought moringa trees and have yet to receive their money Photo: Vathiswa Ruselo

SIWELILE Mzansi Stokvel members are crying foul after investing thousands of rands into People's Oil Tree company (POT) with a promise that their investments would triple in a year.

About 14 members told Sowetan they believe they have been conned and say they warned prospective investors to be careful before investing in this company.

The members invested a total of R100000 and fear they may never see their money again.

They say they bought moringa trees for R50 each after a promise from POT that each tree would yield a a profit of R2000 from the tree's end-products.

Nonhlanhla Mthethwa, 63, of Molapo in Soweto, says their dreams of becoming millionaires were shattered after Thys Bekker, the POT company owner, failed to pay them after the expiry of the investment period of 14 months.

Bekker, however, denies that this is a scam.

Contrary to his undertaking to pay them after 14 months, Bekker is now saying tree owners will have to wait a few more years for a return on their money.

Bekker says his initial promise cannot be fulfilled as moringa trees, grown in KwaZulu-Natal where he has planted them, do not perform well. He says the local trees the stokvel invested in do not yield the same returns of the trees planted in Malawi, Zambia or Brazil.

He adds that it will take up to four years for the ingredients in leaves to reach optimum levels for scientific blending into consumable products like cereal and tea.

Mthethwa says the stokvel members were enticed to invest in this project after an agent representing POT made a presentation at one of their monthly meetings.

"It was in one of these feedback meetings that the POT agent sold us the idea of investing into the oil trees which we found amenable," she says.

While some of their 145 members invested in poultry and livestock, others invested in the moringa tree project, she adds.

Mthethwa says the moringa tree has important minerals and is a good source of protein, vitamins, amino acids and members were told they would make money out of these products.

"Moringa can act as cardiac and circulatory stimulants. It also lowers cholesterol and has anti-oxidant and anti-diabetic properties," Mthethwa says.

She says she bought 70 trees for R3500. She had hoped to rake in R140000 in 14 months.

Christopher Nzuza, of Amanzimtoti in KwaZulu-Natal, invested R35000 and expected R1.3-million in a year's time.

He says he realised in January this year that he had been conned.

Nzuza said when he demanded his profit, Bekker took him to barren land, saying that the bad weather had affected the crops.

He has since lodged a complaint against him with the office of consumer affairs in Durban.

Bekker has threatened to sue Sowetan should we publish the story. He says he started the company as an empowering initiative to create wealth and to provide jobs for many unemployed people.

"The company is now becoming profitable as moringa products are now available in most supermarkets in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape. Bad publicity at this stage will deter the public from buying our products," he says.

Bekker insists that he has honoured his contracts with tree investors but in this instance he could not do more to make the business viable.

He says the investors signed an agreement stating that tree owners would be paid subject to the harvest and believes he is near to breaking even.

This means they will have to wait for their trees to mature as well as products sold for profit before they could be paid out.

 

 

For more stories like this one, be sure to buy the Sowetan newspaper from Mondays to Fridays

 

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