An anxious mother is fearing the worst after her son disappeared from an unregistered drug rehabilitation centre whose owner is out on bail for the alleged murder of an addict who was admitted to the centre last month.
Matlala Mathibela, 62, from Ga-Matipane Village in Bolobedu, Limpopo, said she had arranged with the owner of the centre, Appreciate Makhubele, 30, to come and fetch her drug-addicted son, so that he could receive help at the centre.
“It has been 25 days of sleepless nights since my son disappeared,” Mathibela said.
“I just need answers on his whereabouts. If the security [at the centre] was tight, he wouldn’t have escaped.”
The visibly worried mother told Sowetan she met Makhubele through a social worker attached to a local clinic where she had sought help.
“I did not doubt the information from the social worker, as she even called him [Makhubele] on the phone. We didn’t do due diligence and investigate as a family if the centre was legit or not, I just needed help for my son,” she said.
Makhubele fetched her son on June 27, and she agreed to pay him R2,000 after her son finished the month-long treatment.
Mathibela said that on July 8, Makhubele called her to tell her that he was going to bring her son home because he was not complying with disciplinary measures and refusing to bathe and exercise.
“Within an hour, Makhubele called my teenage niece, informing her that my son had escaped from the centre. I was shocked because I spoke to him an hour ago. I asked myself why he would call my niece when he has my cellphone number,” Mathibela said.
She immediately called Makhubele, who told her son escaped when he pretended to go to the toilets.
The following day, she went to Mokwakwaila police station with Makhubele to file a missing persons case and her son’s photo was circulated on social media.
However, Mathibela became more worried as days went by without hearing any news about her son.
“On July 22, I called Makhubele informing him that we will be coming to the centre, but when we arrived, we couldn’t find him,” she said.
The family learnt on the visit to the centre that Makhubele had been arrested on July 22 for the assault and murder of Jacob Sekgotla, 28, at the centre on July 2. According to the deceased’s younger brother, patients at the centre were often subjected to beatings and deprived of food.
Makhubele is out on R2,000 bail.
Meanwhile, desperate parents in the Modjadjiskloof area, where Makhubele’s centre is situated, said their children abused drugs and, out of desperation, most parents turned to unregistered rehab centres.
Raesetja Manyapye said that when her underage son’s drug addiction spiralled out of control, she booked him into Makhubele’s centre.
She said that after hearing that Makhubele had been arrested for murder and the centre closed, she arranged for her son to return home, but he is using drugs again.
“The boy was notorious and when I desperately looked for a rehab centre, I had no time to check if it was registered,” Manyapye said. “However, after a few weeks, I heard through other villagers that the owner had been arrested for severely beating up an addict and the person had died. I panicked and, out of fear, I had to remove my son from the centre.”
Makhubele said: “People who have no idea about the plight of drug addicts are making the loudest noise. They don’t know that I opened this centre after being touched by the concerns of distraught families.”
He blamed the department of social development, saying it was doing little to help drug addicts who have no facilities to turn to.
“The energy this department is using to shut down our camps should have been directed to empowering rehab facilities in the province,” he said. “The scourge of drug addiction is uncontrollable, yet the government is turning a blind eye.”
The spokesperson for the Limpopo social development department, Joshua Kwapa, said the mushrooming of unregistered drug rehabilitation facilities was a grave concern.
“They continue to disobey the laws governing rehabilitation centres and this places the lives of the patients in grave danger. We call upon parents to first check if the centre is registered before booking their children,” he said. – Additional reporting by Moyahabo Mabeba
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