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Robbery 'payout' R3.81 a bullet
11/03/2008 13:00 - (SA)
Christel Raubenheimer, Beeld
Pretoria - Aletta Koen, 35, has been paid out R7.62 after being shot twice in an armed robbery at work last year.
This is the amount the Compensation Commissioner awarded her last week.
Koen can't remember much about the night of July 25 except that her attacker was wearing "a red shirt, black pants and nice shoes".
Her life has been threatening to fall apart since the shooting at Dealz Family Store in Claremont, Pretoria west.
Four people were wounded during the robbery and two were killed.
Koen has since had six operations on her hand so that it can be reconstructed and has been declared unfit for work for a year.
"I told him (one of the robbers) five times in Afrikaans that I couldn't open the till.
"I hit a blank."
"Some nights, I dream that I shoot them dead, but I can never see them."
Koen's employer paid her salary of about R1 800 for the first three months after the shooting.
Then she went to the Compensation Commissioner.
"When I got there last week, a woman told me that R7 had been paid in for me.
"On the computer it also showed that they had paid in R7," said Koen at her house in Claremont on Monday.
Vernon Mchunu, who is associated with the compensation fund, said there had been a delay in the scanning and indexing processes in the fund's electronic system.
Progress report
The R7.62 that landed in Koen's account is partial payment of money which is still owed to her.
According to Mchunu, compensation is calculated according to an employee's earnings before the accident.
He said that the exact amount had not been indicated on Koen's forms.
He added that the fund had accepted responsibility for the payment of compensation and medical expenses.
Since her application, Koen has had to get a progress report from a doctor.
This report has to be certified by police, after which it must be taken to the Compensation Commissioner's office in Pretoria city centre.
"It costs us R50 each time, for me and my husband.
"You're out of the house at 05:50 to catch the bus and then the buses don't show up.
When you get home again, you have blisters on your feet from all the walking.
"You feel powerless.
"They don't do their work and you don't get anywhere."
Papers 'missing'
In the meanwhile, Koen and her husband, Dawie, 42, who is a meter reader, now have no electricity as it has been cut off.
According to Koen, her application has been delayed because some or other documentation has been missing each time she makes the trip to the Compensation Commissioner's office.
"Sometimes I have my emotional days.
"But, I have a husband who looks after me. He picks me up when I just want to lie down."
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