Table Mountain homeless man Vincent van der Zeer slams SASSA bank deductions

Vincent van der Zeer, a homeless man who lives on Table Mountain, returned to CapeTalk once more after recently mesmerising listeners with stories about his way of life.

He was initially invited into the studio for a chat after he called into the show from Table Mountain to comment on a discussion with Daily Maverick journalist Don Pinnock about his article `Rough sleepers: The mountain keeps us'.

During the first in-studio interview, Van der Zeer explained that he'd been a Sunday school teacher in the NG Kerk at 17, an officer in the apartheid army at 21, an LSD seller at 23, and later a computer programmer selling LSD after hours.

He'd also stumbled into the film industry when he was about 40 and then taught at a college in the Middle East. When he returned to Cape Town, 'work got less and less', and eventually, he couldn't pay rent anymore.

It's been over a decade since he became homeless. He said many people don't understand how one can lose support networks like family and friends, and the consequences of that.

Today, he explained that he lives off a SASSA pension. He vented about having to have his money in a bank account since the court ruling against Cash Paymaster Services, which used to pay out social grants and was found to have made unlawful deductions.

"A bank account costs me R7 a month. Plus, for every R100 that I draw, the bank takes R1.10 or R2.20. So, why is it OK for the banks to take R60 from me, but when Cash Paymaster does it, everyone has a meltdown?

"What CPS did was absolutely wrong, and they should've been stopped. But why do we stop them? It just seems that the whole thing was just a bank heist. It was for the banks to get access to that money, and once they have access to that money, we don't talk about it."

He added that he believes the system is rigged against everyone except the top 10% of society.

Van der Zeer says he spends his money on food, data and secondhand books.

He also explained that he is not the person who starts fires on Table Mountain, as some people on social media alleged. "I have a little enclosed gas cooker that works with gas tins. If you buy it in the shop, it costs R35," he said.

More on life on Table Mountain

— It will break you: homeless man shares daily reality

A decade on the mountain, survival routines, and the mental toll of homelessness laid bare.

— Hidden community living on Table Mountain slopes

Inside a little-seen network of people who call the mountain home and view it as safer than the city below.

To listen to the full discussion on CapeTalk, use the media player below: