to loan sharks Khadija Magardie The light drizzle that quickly turns to a heavy downpour has not discouraged the steady stream of elderly men and women from queuing in the early hours of the morning to collect their monthly government handout. Anyone arriving at the Coronationville Community Centre after 7am has to stand at the back of a filled hall. Entrepreneurs have set up shop wherever possible from pavements to fire hydrants, lining the route to the paypoint inside the hall. One can buy everything, from freshly hacked cuts of beef to curry powder and fluffy slippers. One woman peddling her range of masalas explains: “Die ou mense het baie goeters nodig [The old people need many things].” Many of the pensioners, however, would rather not be there. Some even try to arrive or leave by a different route. One frail man says he has brought along his burly-looking grandson “for protection”. For also lurking around the hall among the vendors are moneylenders. Some are unobtrusive and hover around the gates or at the doors of the cafe across the road. Others are less subtle. A woman, whom some pensioners refer to simply as “Mrs Lee”, is standing across the road, accompanied by a pair of undernourished, unkempt youths. Although, being of Asian descent, she stands out in the predominantly coloured area, there is no obvious indication that she is involved in anything untoward. Until a middle-aged man leaving the hall approaches her. They walk together into a corner, where the man hands over money. He walks away, and she resumes her previous position. Similar transactions with Mrs Lee take place throughout the day. Mrs Lee is one of a thriving group of moneylenders in the predominantly working class coloured townships of Westbury, “Corrie” (Coronationville) and “Die Kaas” (Newclare) who, during the month when funds are low, give desperate pensioners both money and various goods, including food, “on tick”. When pension day comes, the pensioners are slapped with an interest bill amounting to half of the original loan. The Black Sash, which monitors such activities, acknowledges there is a problem with loan sharks preying on pensioners, but say they operate relatively furtively, so it becomes difficult to prove. There are hopes that a new computerised payment system that deposits money directly into pensioners’ bank accounts will curtail the practice. “These people offer to help them, but nobody signs any contracts, so the old people never know when they have [finished] or will finish paying,” says Westbury community activist Yvette Jansen. Aunty Aida Crisp (51) says she borrows money regularly to make ends meet for her disabled son’s children in her care. She admits lenders exploit the poor, but says they have generally helped her.
Others are less enthusiastic. Aunty Jainab Miller, a pretty woman in her early 60s with long black hair, says she struggles to maintain her home with her pension. She complains that the interest extracted leaves many people penniless on pension day, forcing them to borrow yet again. The object of Aunty Miller’s wrath is an obese woman, referred to as “Wendy”, who, by all accounts, is the “godmother” of the moneylenders. Too fat too walk, some say, she slouches on the back seat of a spruced Valiant with tinted windows, in a parking space directly outside the main entrance of the hall. Wendy likes to keep pensioners’ identity documents to ensure they pay up and show up. When certain pensioners come out, one of Wendy’s young cronies escorts them to the car’s back seat, where they are locked in to yet another month of debt.