WATCH: Momentum widow no stranger to fighting authority
|Published
Denise Ganas in her Shallcross home the day after Momentum agreed to pay out an insurance policy of R2.4 million. Picture: Leon Lestrade/ANA Denise Ganas in her Shallcross home the day after Momentum agreed to pay out an insurance policy of R2.4 million. Picture: Leon Lestrade/ANA
Durban - The Shallcross woman for whom insurance giant Momentum buckled under social media pressure this week is no stranger to headlines and squaring up to authority.
Denise Ganas was lauded on Facebook in May this year when she went head-to-head with politicians at a public meeting in Chatsworth, demanding that the investigation into her husband’s death be finalised. At the time it had been more than a year and three months without arrests.
She revealed in an interview with eNCA earlier this week that she would not let the issue go, as she now looks set to put pressure on Police Minister Bheki Cele to find her husband's killers.
Her husband Nathan Ganas was shot dead during a botched hijacking in Shallcross, in March last year. The police investigation into his death has not been finalised and the perpetrators remain at large, almost 18 months later.
At the time of her fiery speech during the public meeting in Chatsworth in May this year, Denise drew loud applause from the community which had gathered to raise questions to a top government delegation about crime in the area. The meeting had been convened shortly after the death of 9-year-old Sadia Sukhraj, who was also killed when car thieves fled with her father's car in Shallcross.
Ganas painted a picture to the crowd of how eThekwini deputy mayor, Fawzia Peer, approached her the day after her husband was killed to take pictures with the grieving widow. She bemoaned how the deputy mayor posed for pictures and complained that pictures were bad or showed in unflattering manner, but nothing was done to solve the investigation. Her fiery speech was caught on video the Sunday Tribune and it set social media alight at the time.
Watch The Video Below
Nathan Ganas was killed in a hail of bullets trying to protect his wife, Denise, during a botched hijacking in the driveway of their Shallcross home. Listen to the wife Denise bemoan the behaviour of politicians in crime fighting efforts. Video: Karinda Jagmohan / Sunday Tribune
She said, at the time: “No statements were taken from witnesses, nothing’s been done, and it’s one year and three months later. The very next day I had three visitors: Jakes Singh (Chatsworth CPF chairperson), Fawzia Peer (deputy mayor) and Visvin Reddy (ANC member). There were three pictures taken that day.””
“Fawzia Peer took pictures with me. The first picture we took she was not happy because her hair wasn’t right. The second picture her stomach was showing. So is that what they do when they come to our house and offer to support?” she asked.
She also slammed Singh, the local community policing forum chairperson, to whom she had been in contact with on Whatsapp pleading for assistance with the investigation. She called him out as well, telling the public, he had failed to come back to her as he had promised at the time.
Following the Momentum whirlwind this week, Denise said in a statement that she was relieved as her children would now have the future that their father would have wanted for them.
Momentum has since promised to pay the R2.4m life police after pressure from the public following a story published by the Independent on Saturday. It has also amended its company policy on violent crimes.