I flip television channels a lot since Covid-19 forced me to work from home. And I believe I have heard numerous experts waxing lyrical about informal businesses being key to the survival of SA’s economy.
I am sure I have heard them underlining the need to support local entrepreneurs to ensure their survival post Covid-19. As if the destruction caused by Covid-19 was not enough, Western Cape informal traders have been hit by another pandemic whose diagnosis eludes the economic whizzes.
In this province – blessed with natural beauty encompassing the splendid Table Mountain, exquisite beaches, fynbos and birdlife – a ruthless extortion racket has taken root. Criminal gangs have modelled themselves as parallel revenue collectors to the SA Revenue Service (Sars).
They are becoming more prompt and efficient by the day. The only difference between them and Sars is that they have induced crippling fear in the minds of informal business owners around the Cape Town metro.
The gangs – who have adopted monikers such as the Guptas and Boko Harams – demand “protection fees” from the traders. Crèche owners, carwashes, backroom-flat owners, the woman selling chicken trotters on the side of the road, hair salons, spaza shops and a myriad other informal businesses are not spared. Those who do not comply are threatened with untold violence.
Social media is awash with messages, allegedly from the gangs, informing communities that they now have to pay annual “protection fees” for their cars and businesses. One of the messages reads: “Cosovo, Samora, Marikana nibe ready sifikile (residents of Cosovo, Samora, Marikana, be ready we have arrived), if une flat ezintandathu ezithathu zezethu (if you have six flats, three of them are ours). The message then stipulates the annual “protection fee” for various items.
“Car – 500 per annum, car wash – 500 per annum, barbershop – 500 per annum, saloon (sic) – 500 per annum, veg stand – 500 per annum, fruit stand – 500 per annum, tshisanyama – 500 per annum, panel beaters – 1,500 per annum, Fetkoek (vetkoek) – 500 per annum (and) spaza shops as usually (sic) 500 per annum.”
Residents claim extortionists even demand to see their payslips, “protection fees” for their television sets and to cancel insurance for their cars and pay the premiums to them instead.
In October I wrote a story for the Sunday Times about the extortion scourge in the province and particularly how it is wreaking havoc in Khayelitsha. At their wits’ end, the residents called a prayer meeting at the local sports field, attended by deputy state security minister Zizi Kodwa, to call for divine intervention. The meeting was poorly attended.
Local community leaders and business owners, who are normally vocal about social issues, were paralysed by fear. They asked to remain anonymous. At the prayer meeting, residents were suspicious of each other, saying some of those who had attended might have come to spy for their underworld bosses. Khayelitsha Development Forum (KDF) chairperson Ndithini Tyhido’s car was attacked by unknown assailants as he left the prayer meeting. He declined to elaborate on the incident.
In the following days, I interviewed several business owners about their encounters with the extortion racket. They demanded assurance that the publication would not expose them under any circumstances.
We met in secluded parts of the sprawling township. They constantly looked over their shoulders and spoke in hushed tones even though we were far away from the public.
One of them – a businesswoman – said she knew her death was imminent. She had fielded a barrage of calls from underworld figures ordering her to organise fellow informal traders to pay “protection fees”. She said she was overwhelmed by fear whenever she received a call from an unknown number. The woman, who sells meat and ordinary wares, said she supported family with the “little profit I make from informal trading”. The woman said the extortion problem had escalated during level 1 of the lockdown, but she traced it back to 2019.
“This problem started around June 2019. We heard that the Somali-owned businesses were being forced to pay a protection fee. Apparently doctors in the community were also extorted. As a result a doctor was forced to employ one of the tsotsis to protect his business,” the woman said.
She said three gangs, including one called the Guptas, had approached informal traders and demanded between R300 and R1,000 protection fee from each trader.
“It is the Guptas that have been demanding a protection fee, not amapharaphara (tsotsis) who rob people of their phones on a daily basis. The Guptas want the protection fee and if you don’t pay they rob you,” she said.
The woman added: “The locals were seriously targeted during level 1 of the lockdown. A group of men approached my shop and said: ‘We heard you are the leader of these traders; each stand must pay us R500 monthly.’ I told them there was another group who demanded R300 monthly. Before that, another group came and demanded R1,000. I asked them to find the other groups and thrash it out among themselves. We got a report from crèches – the gangs want R100 per child monthly. They went to crèches in Enkanini and Harare. Endlovini traders have already paid the protection fee.”
The woman said she had received a call a week before the interview from someone instructing her to meet him at a local shopping mall. The person then told her he was using an untraceable phone.
“He said: ‘Since you are protecting those informal traders you must know that in the end we will find you.’ I told him: ‘If you want to kill me, so be it. There is nothing I can do’.”
The woman added: “I am unemployed. I have a child in Grade R, one in Grade 4 and another one in university. I have four brothers who are unemployed and I support them as well. I would go bankrupt if I had to pay a R500 protection fee. We don’t know what else they will demand.”
Several other traders shared the same sentiments. I had to jump through hoops to secure the interviews. Most believed the extortion rackets had become sophisticated and that they might have tapped their phones and tracked their movements.
Another woman, who sells meat, said her assistant told her a man came to enquire about the protection fee.
“The man told my assistant we should start paying R800 per person monthly,” the woman said. “The demand is very forceful. Three groups have already come and told us we need to pay. One of the men said they will come back and mark our stands and then collect the money.”
The informal traders I interviewed had two things in common: fear and despair. Their plight was similar: they have no other sources of income, they have a significant number of mouths to feed, and they were ejected by the job market as it shrank.
Some pinned their hopes on me. They hoped I would be able to access the top government echelons on their behalf and narrate their predicament. But they failed to realise three things. I was equally scared, frustrated and infuriated. I was just driven by the quest to give a voice to a community under siege from a powerful and ruthless criminal gang that threatened to smother the tiny shoots of economic activity in the impoverished township.
I mumbled something along the lines: “The Sunday Times is widely read, and the relevant ministers will read the story. We are a credible publication. They take us seriously.”
It turned out I had underestimated the racket’s grip. Its tentacles extend to Gugulethu, Nyanga and the surrounding townships. Bloody killings, such as the shooting incident where seven people died in Gugulethu, followed.
A Gugulethu community leader, who also asked to remain anonymous, said the extortion racket ran deep and wide – and “decent and respectable people are involved. Some of these extortionists were used by taxi owners as snipers during their taxi wars. Some of them have considerable influence even in formal businesses. We have heard of a number of cases where these guys have allegedly intervened in the awarding of construction tenders and provide security at construction sites. You have to be very careful, they have ears everywhere.” The community leader said improved police intelligence could be the solution.
Established businesses in the Cape Town CBD have not been spared. Randolf Jorberg, the owner of the Beerhouse in Long Street, fled to Germany at the height of a nightclub-extortion wave. He said the Khayelitsha extortions mirrored those of a security racket in the CBD. Jorberg said if not stopped, the gangs would render business unviable and urged government to take action against the collection of a “security tax” by “non-official structures”.
In October, Western Cape police spokesperson Brig Novela Potwela said: “The SAPS in the Western Cape has been alerted to numerous disturbing incidents where businesspeople and or private individuals have been threatened with violence and/or coerced into paying individuals money in exchange for some protection against robberies, hijackings or other violent crimes.”
The phenomenon has been picked up in a number of townships in the Cape Town metropole, the Cape Town CBD and a few outlying areas, Potelwa said.
“A common thread that relates to these alleged incidents is that the SAPS gets informed through third parties but not the primary victims. The main reason advanced being that victims fear for their safety. This has somewhat constrained the SAPS’ response to the claims.”
Potelwa said Western Cape police had developed an operational plan to fight the extortions.
“A key feature of the plan is a dedicated 24-hour telephone line where victims can report incidents of extortion. The line is located at the SAPS provincial operational command centre for a prompt operational response to information shared,” she said.
“Targeted operations as part of the plan are executed at identified hotspots with intelligence playing a crucial role in actions embarked upon. While the police encourage more people to report cases, detectives are investigating cases already opened. The constant engagement of key stakeholders within communities has started in a bid to get to know the gravity of the problem. The forces on the ground are still busy pursuing specific leads and will continue for quite some time.”
Potelwa said the rackets were also believed to be killing each other.
“What detectives are also probing are murder and attempted murder cases linked to intra and intergroup conflict, as there have been reports of the alleged extortionists fighting over territory thus resulting in multiple murders and serious injury,” said Potelwa. “The dedicated SAPS Western Cape line for reporting the cases is 021-466-0011.”
Earlier this month, Western Cape police arrested four suspects for extortion.
“Through proper pamphlet distribution and informative efforts by SAPS members and their community policing partners in the Mfuleni policing precinct, people have come to learn the seriousness and negative impact extortion has on communities. It has become clearer by the day through a number of media reports how businesses and residents are experiencing extortion from gangsters,” police spokesperson Frederick van Wyk said in a statement.
Van Wyk said a Wesbank resident complained to the police that the gang had threatened him and his family.
“They demanded a substantial amount of money from the complainant, who then made the payment. SAPS investigators and members attached to the station gang unit made a breakthrough in the case and arrested four of the alleged gang members.”
This is a glimmer of hope.
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