'Many are widows today because of what happened'
Meet the Gcabas, a dynasty that has an unrivalled reputation as the fierce, untouchable dons of the dangerous South African minibus taxi industry.
Depending on who you speak to, the family either deserve this fearsome label, or are innocent victims of perceptions that lead to urban legends.
The Gcabas are reluctant to divulge the exact number of 15- and 22-seater taxis in the fleet which saturates the lucrative long-distance taxi market - easily distinguished by the "Gcaba Brothers" logos - but observers estimate the number to be in the hundreds.
The Gcabas have been at the centre of many controversies, and are back in the news following their R300-million deal to run Durban's troubled bus fleet. Questions are being asked about how they clinched the deal - awarded without a tender - considering their relatively limited experience in the bus industry.
The contract was signed in the teeth of a court application by local bus operators who had been excluded from the process and wanted it cancelled. But the city used provisions which allowed it to appoint an alternative bus operator during an emergency.
The Gcaba brothers are equally averse to any discussions about their blood ties to President Jacob Zuma - their mother is Zuma's sister Abigail - or their friendship with S'bu Mpisane, Durban's mystery millionaire metro policeman. Ten years ago, Mpisane disappeared just before he was due to give evidence against the Gcaba brothers in a case involving the death of three people in a shooting outside the High Court in Durban.
The Gcabas' imprint can be felt on taxi routes all over Southern Africa, including Mozambique and Swaziland.
The transport empire is led by Mandlakapheli Gcaba and his brothers Roma, Thembinkosi and Mfundo. Other Gcaba relatives own driving schools and bakeries.
"They control everything in taxis," said a Durban taxi boss who asked not to be named. "They are untouchable."
The Gcabas came to public attention around 1988, with their iconic minibus taxi - a "Zola Budd", registration NUZ 4000 - which was parked outside their home in Umlazi township. This was the grand-daddy of "blinged-out" taxis, fitted with a thunderous sound system that cost R50000 in those days.
"It was iconic, one-of-a-kind. Everybody knew it," said Vuyo Mkhize, the Gcabas' publicist and a family friend.
Even today the mere mention on the streets of Durban of the Gcaba name triggers stories of how the family fought tooth and nail to protect the family business in the '90s - and how the blood flowed.
For some, the name stirs memories of how "the Gcaba boys" used to allegedly terrorise people and abuse or - in township parlance, "jackroll" - girls at nightclubs.
Even Bheki Cele, now the national minister of police, has felt the weight of the Gcaba name. When he was transport MEC in KwaZulu-Natal, Cele was verbally abused on the telephone by a person impersonating one of the brothers.
Mandlakapheli Eric Gcaba, 42, a towering, larger-than-life businessman - who is terrified of frogs - would have you believe that the Gcabas are just an ordinary family, whose notoriety has been blown out of proportion.
Mandla leads Transnat Africa, the consortium that recently took over the reins from Remant Alton, whose efforts to run municipal buses in Durban collapsed in June.
Mandla is the youngest of four children from the most senior of his father's five wives - he has 31 siblings. He is regarded as the shrewdest of the remaining members of the Gcaba clan - Mandla's father, Simon, was assassinated in 1996, and a brother, Moses, was murdered the following year during a fierce battle over taxi routes. Mandla describes himself as an advocate for peace, a man who refused to go to war with his father's killer. Mandla's business acumen may well have helped steer the family through tough times. A dropout from Technikon RSA law school, he is the first to admit: "Everything we touch turns to gold."
Mandla, an erstwhile goatherd who grew up in Nkandla, about 280km north of Durban, is a 40% shareholder in Transnat Africa, which has bus operations in various KwaZulu-Natal towns and also owns Eagle Liner and Star Bus Luxury coaches.
He said: "We hear this thing that people are afraid of the Gcaba brothers getting involved in the bus industry. But how many Gcaba vehicles are on South African roads that people use daily?"
But neither he nor any other members of the family were prepared to answer Mandla's question.
Mandla has three wives - each with her own house in the exclusive suburb of Umhlanga Rocks - and jokes that he still has some way to go because his father had five.
His fleet of luxury cars includes a R3.4-million Bentley GTC V12 convertible and numerous seven-seater SUVs, including a R1-million Mercedes GL 500, a Toyota Prado and a VW Caravelle Tdi, to ferry the family around.
"These days you have to buy the type of car you need. I couldn't buy lots of small cars because we are a large family," he said.
In the boardroom at his swanky company offices in Umhlanga Ridge, he is the picture of business sophistication, at ease in the corporate surroundings.
He has no bodyguards. Gone, too, are his .41 Magnum and 9mm pistol, which he has handed in to the Firearms Registry.
Information and dates that had a telling impact on his life roll off his tongue as though gleaned from a diary.
Dates like February 6 1996, when his father was shot dead. Or October 14 1996, when Mandla was shot at nine times and hit four times. The same year, the family were attacked at home, while playing a game of pool. No one was seriously injured.
On March 17 1997, Mandla's eldest brother Moses, who partnered him in a trucking business, was shot dead, and on January 22 the following year another brother, Frank, died in a car accident.
But it was the murder of Simon Gcaba that shook the long-distance taxi industry to its foundations.
Simon was an executive committee member of the Durban and District Taxi Association (DDTA), when he was gunned down near an ice cream parlour, aged 69. Gcaba's former protégé, Bernard "Big Ben" Ntuli, then a feared taxi boss and the president of the DDTA, was fingered as the prime suspect. He immediately went into hiding.
In June 1996, with the police having issued a R250000 reward for Ntuli's arrest for a number of murders related to taxi violence, Big Ben died of cerebral malaria.
But by then the damage had been done. Simon Gcaba's murder had split the association in two, sparking a bloody taxi war that lasted for nearly five years.
"Those were very difficult times," recalled taxi owner Jazini Ntuli, a spokesman for the Durban Long Distance Taxi Association. The bald, heavily bearded and bespectacled Jazini - a man who had always carried three guns - was a close associate of Big Ben's, and lost an eye during a shooting.
"A lot of blood flowed. Many women are widows today because of things that happened back then. There was a dark cloud hovering over all of us," said Ntuli.
Now a devout Christian, he says: "If I could show you my body, you would wonder how I'm still alive."
In trying to explain the family's bad reputation, Mandla said: "We happened to come face to face with the most feared person in Durban and we didn't die, at least not all of us. Now that has been made to look like we wanted to take his place, or to be famous like him. No. We were not competing for names and positions. It happened, unfortunately."
And he rebuffed any notion that the family's businesses were run like Mafia operations.
"People can say whatever they want, but at the end of the day, we go to the shop, buy and finance. We don't steal. Not a single item in this house is stolen. You can go to (asset financiers) Nedfin, Stannic, anywhere. You'll find these things are financed. We were taught that anything you earn, you work for.
"People want to be successful, others want fame ... to be seen as people who do big things. But these things don't just come. You work for them. You must have a history, a record to say I've been here, I've done this ... there's no short cut to anything."
At home, Mandla is the quintessential husband and father.
"Isithembu (polygamy) is not something you impose. It is negotiated. That is why you see my wives getting along," he said, as spouses Lindiwe, Kholekile and Buyiswa prepared lunch for guests.
"There's never a time when one of them can say she hasn't seen me in two days. Every weekend of each month I spend with one of them. Even my kids. They won't tell you they haven't seen dad in ages.
"Kids are the most important thing in life."
He looks after 30 of them - 12 are his own and the rest are his late brother Moses' - and they go to prestigious private schools like Crawford College, Varsity College and Vega, a school of branding.
"You pay R400000 for just two children. It's a lot of money. I tell people that I'm poor and they laugh at me."
Welcoming the children from school with hugs and kisses, Mandla pledges to keep a promise he had made five-year-old Nomthi: to buy her toys that night.
At one point, he asks his daughter Nana, 15, about her "adult" hairstyle. "Do they allow you to do your hair like that at school?" With the exuberance of a teen queen, Nana shoots back: "Don't you know who I am?"
Being a Gcaba is obviously something special. So special that some imposters use the name to instil fear in others.
"We know there was a group of boys who went around the streets of Durban abusing girls and calling themselves the Gcabas," said Mandla. "One day one of them called Bheki Cele and swore at him. We investigated and found that the boy was not a Gcaba. Three or four years ago, it was common for people to do things using the Gcaba name. We don't want that because we are not animals. We are not ghosts. We are human beings. We have children, homes, mothers ... we are normal like everybody else," he said.
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