A Zeekoevlei resort owner is in a sticky situation after victims of gender-based violence whom he offered a place to stay for free for seven months are refusing to move.
When the country recently moved to Level 1, the businessman wanted to reopen his lodge but couldn’t.
Eugene Oliver and his wife Gloria-Veal Oliver own the Pelican Christian Lodge.
Four women and their children have since moved out but Eugene says he is now forced to find alternative accommodation for the other three families.
One of the women Dannileen Fransman, 38, lives in a cottage with her two sons and says she refuses to leave because she has nowhere else to go.
The mother claims they are denied “benefits” such as hot water, electricity while their movements are restricted at the lodge.
“Gloria Veale-Oliver claims this is a Christian Lodge. What we experience and see is nothing Christian but evil,” she says.
“They give one woman and her daughter old fish to eat, how dare they? I would not even give this to a dog. These people are hypocrites.”
Dannileen says Eugene “forced” the other two families into one room: “They’re all in one room - a Jewish woman with her 15-year-old daughter and a nurse with her 24 and 15-year-old daughters.”
Eugene says he needs to reopen as soon as possible or he might lose his business.
He has clients booked but cannot accommodate them.
“She was told by the police that she is not a tenant as she does not pay rent.
“I don’t know what more we could have done for Danni and her kids.
“I take and fetch the boys from school, also at no cost even amidst all that’s been going on in the last few weeks,” says Eugene.