Car-wash businesses are the latest product of that grey area known as the second economy, which gave the world street hawkers, spaza shops, shebeens and the ubiquitous public-phone business.
Car-wash initiatives can be set up with little capital and operate on a shoestring budget. So, when John Pele, Thabo Mokgatle and Lawrence Sithole found themselves unemployed and in need of money for higher education, they opened a car-wash business.
These twentysomething entrepreneurs run their business from the front yard of Pele’s house, on the main road of Marthinus Smuts Drive in Diepkloof Zone 4, and offer services ranging from washing and polishing to vacuuming and engine washing.
”We came up with the idea because we wanted to improve our lives … We needed something to do to keep ourselves from … being tempted to commit crime,” says Pele.
During the week they wash between four to eight vehicles a day, and charge R30 for sedans and an extra R5 for taxis and sports utility vehicles. On weekends they average 18 cars a day.
Although the business makes ends meet, the group has greater ambitions. Mokgatle says: ”Our aim is to open car-wash franchises in all the provinces.”
Another car-wash operator who refused to be bogged down by the bleak prospects of unemployment is Nonhlanhla Mkhatshana. She used to sell meals to taxi drivers, but when that business collapsed she set up a car-wash business on the pavement outside her house near Chris Hani-Baragwanath hospital in Soweto. Her carport stall can accommodate four vehicles and, depending on business, her five employees earn R150 upward.
But running a business from the pavement fell foul of the council’s by-laws and Mkhatshana ended up in a slanging match with the Metro police. ”They came here and told me to remove the carport and I told them that the government says vuk’uzenzele [stand up and empower yourself]. And when I do exactly that you come and take away the food from my children’s mouth … they haven’t come back.”
A company that has made inroads into the corporate sector by formalising car-washing is Stop Wash — a Section 21 company founded by the chairperson of Super Group, Dr Larry Lipschitz. Stop Wash employs 530 agents who service 41 corporate sites from the Jo’burg CBD to Midrand.
Mark Kruger, the national team manager of Stop Wash, says 60% of the staff are female because ”women make better car-washers”. Car-wash agents undergo screenings for criminal records as well as assessments of job suitability and character, to ensure that clients have peace of mind when leaving their keys with them.
”Although some of our car-wash agents are salaried, we encourage them to work on commission so that they can cultivate their client base and make more money,” Kruger says.
John Pele says, ”Right now I wash amaX5 [BMWs], tomorrow I must drive one.” So perhaps visions of winning the Lotto are being traded in for the practical street dreams of a cashless society.