With a few seconds to make a successful sales pitch, self-styled car guard Isaac Mokeng doesn’t waste a second in blasting drivers with unsolicited promises.
“Woza [come] chief! I’ll give you a nice parking,” he throws at the traffic inching toward one of South Africa’s top sporting grounds.
A frustrated driver eventually takes the bait and Mokeng sprints ahead to an ad-hoc parking space to haggle a tip before taking up the hustle again.
Flush from South Africa’s recent hosting of the Indian Premier League (IPL), car guards like Mokeng are praying for a vehicle watching boom at next week’s Fifa Confederations Cup.
“I hope there are going to be many cars again,” said Mokeng.
“It’s a good job for me because I earn something to buy some bread.”
Over the past decade, thousands of people wearing neon security bibs have popped up in South Africa’s streets, malls and sports stadiums to stake out parked cars and then ask for small tips from drivers.
It’s a self-appointed industry that mixes opportunism and entrepreneurship to capitalise on South Africa’s grim crime — which number about 39 car hijackings and 220 thefts per day — and a 23,5% unemployment rate.
Most are unemployed men, many from elsewhere in Africa, and all offer services from somewhat shaky parking advice to on-the-spot car washes.
The South African government has assured football fans that Fifa’s first African World Cup next June will be safe despite it taking place in one of the world’s most violent societies.
“The Confederations Cup will not be an exception,” said new police minister Nathi Mthethwa. “We are preparing ourselves for the 2010 World Cup and we are confident.”
About 10 000 officers will be deployed to the four host cities for the curtainraiser’s two-week run with assistance from emergency and defence forces.
Undoubtedly in the background will be the country’s unshakeable army of car guards, despite not being part of the official plans.
“They told us they don’t want car guards there by Confederation [Cup] and 2010,” said Mokeng. “But I’m still working at Ellis Park [in
Johannesburg]. I must go because I need some money to support my children.”
Big sports events mean big money: car guards reported scoring double their usual day’s take during the recent IPL matches.
One of the hopeful is Nisbet Parella, who works in Johannesburg’s trendy Melville area, and has shrugged off bribes from car thieves and made citizen arrests.
Usually tipped R5, he takes home R80 to R120 a day to support his four children and wife.
“I choose to work for myself. The advantage is that when you are a car guard you make cash now. Our problem is that some of the people don’t appreciate [us], they don’t even say thank you. They just take the car and go,” said Parella.
To many drivers, car guards are glorified beggars — an unavoidable nuissance — to be guilted out of a few coins.
“It’s a very lonely job. A lot of people give them a rough time,” said Tony Leiman, an economist at the Univeristy of Cape Town who co-authored a recent study on the phenomenon.
“It is improving,” he added. “They started off as people with a problem, they’ve become people with a solution.”
Despite some describing the work as lowly but unescapable in the face of grinding joblessness, car guards say it’s crime-deterring income in a country where 43% of people live on less than $2 [R16] a day.
“We are looking after everything. No one can steal a car. If they chase us away, they find some problems, said Jeffrey Boi, a car guard of nine years.
“I’m not a beggar — I’m helping society,” he adds before shooting off to wrangle more business. – AFP