‘Love children’ want Mandela estate recognition

Nelson Mandela. Picture: Khaya Ngwenya/City Press

Two people apparently fathered by Nelson Mandela have sought to be acknowledged by his estate, says an attorney dealing with Mandela’s will.

Family representatives of Onica Mothoa and Mpho Pule contacted Michael Katz, one of two attorneys appointed by the estate’s executors, to handle matters surrounding Mandela’s will.

Katz confirmed yesterday evening that he had been contacted, with Mothoa and Pule’s representatives claiming they were fathered by Mandela when he was still married to his first wife, Evelyn Mase.

TV programme Carte Blanche reported last night that the pair’s lawyers had approached the Master of the High Court to stop the division of funds as directed by Mandela’s will from his estate.

Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke told reporters in Johannesburg last Monday that the provisional assessment of Mandela’s estate was about R46 million.

“The amount, which excludes royalties accrued over time, is still to be verified,” Moseneke said.

The will was first written in 2004 and last amended in 2008.

Katz said the two women sought to be recognised by Mandela’s estate and did not seek any money.

Katz said he would meet the executors of Mandela’s estate to discuss the matter.

During Carte Blanche’s broadcast, Mothoa and Pule’s relatives claimed they had tried to reach Mandela in the past so that he could acknowledge he was the two women’s father. But there was no acknowledgement. He had reportedly met one of the women.

A legal spokesperson for the women’s families told Carte Blanche they were considering bringing an application for Mandela’s DNA to be tested to show if he was connected to Mothoa and Pule.

The women, originally from Hammanskraal and Bloemfontein, have featured in various news reports over the years claiming that Mandela was their father.

In the most recent report, it was claimed one of them was refused access to Mandela in his last hospitalisation in Pretoria.

The Carte Blanche report said neither woman was allowed into the funeral area when Mandela was buried in Qunu in the Eastern Cape on December 15 after his death on December 5.

They also had to watch Mandela lying in state at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on television.

Source: CITY PRESS