Not everyone cheers when the lights stay on - Informal traffic wardens in Durban lose out on cash

Homeless and traffic in Durban. (Photo: Chris Makhaye)

3 Nov 2024

Not everyone is celebrating the end of load shedding. The people who sleep on Durban’s streets have lost income from directing traffic and face an uncertain future.

While many South Africans are celebrating the fact that there have been about 220 days without the menace of rolling blackouts, some poor people in Durban are saying it is depriving them of opportunities and income.

Sifiso Ntuli (33) is one of a group of unemployed people who have been earning some money at busy intersections around the city during power outages, working as informal traffic wardens.

For their efforts directing vehicles, appreciative motorists would toss coins to them, enabling them to buy food and other goods.

Making ends meet

Ntuli, from the Inanda informal settlement northwest of Durban, said load shedding meant a bounty for him and other people who sleep on the street. He was a regular figure directing traffic at intersections in or near the Morningside area.

“During load shedding we helped motorists by doing exactly what traffic officers do. Some motorists gave us coins, others gave us notes, the most generous giving R20, R50 and even R100 notes.

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“For over two years it had become our custom that electricity would go away and we will be out there on the streets. It was easy for me to earn up to R500 a day. And all of a sudden, this year, all this stopped because the traffic lights are working,” he said.

Ntuli, who admits to using drugs, said he had now been forced back to his old hustle of collecting tins and other recyclable items to sell at scrapyards to eke out a living.

His fate is shared by other informal traffic wardens in the city. Sandile Sibaya (29), who is from Umzimkhulu but now lives in the Mayville informal settlement, said he too made a living during load shedding.

“Those motorists travel this route every weekday [and] had become used to us. If they didn’t toss coins and notes, they gave us food, fruit or cold drinks. It felt so good because we were providing a community service,” he said. “We were so successful in what we were doing that the real traffic officials became jealous of us.

“It’s not that we forced or pestered anyone to pay, but on a good day I would make anything between R250 and R400,” he said.

“After the electricity was restored, I tried to look for a job, but I was unsuccessful. I had to start collecting cardboard and other stuff to sell so that I can buy food.”

On some days he comes up empty handed and has to queue for food from NGOs and religious organisations.

Sfiso Ntuli, a homeless man, sorts recyclable materials in Morningside. Ntuli helped as an informal traffic warden during the dark days of load shedding in Durban. (Photo: Chris Makhaye)

Growing unemployment

A recent study by an eThekwini Municipality entity showed that unemployment in Durban increased by 34,000 people in the fourth quarter of 2023, reaching a staggering 359,000. This coincided with a decrease of 11,000 employed people, suggesting fewer available jobs, likely because of the economic slowdown.

The pandemic, the July 2021 riots, the 2022 floods, rolling blackouts and political instability all played a role in this rise in unemployment. It prompted the DA, which has members serving on the eThekwini Municipality’s executive committee, to issue a statement that Durban must do everything possible to change this.

“Unskilled workers face immense challenges in securing stable employment. The failure of the city to provide adequate job opportunities exacerbates this crisis, leaving families struggling to make ends meet,” the party said.

Draconian measures

Life is tough for the thousands who sleep on the streets of KwaZulu-Natal’s major port city. Although some organisations try to help, government officials, the police and hospital staff often don’t treat them well.

On the other hand, the eThekwini Municipality and the KwaZulu-Natal government have come under fire from local businesses and the tourism industry, which said crime, grime and vagrancy were major contributors in driving away investment and tourists from the city.

Now that the traffic lights are working again in Durban, the city’s homeless people have lost precious income as informal traffic wardens. (Photo: Chris Makhaye)

In response, premier Thami Ntuli and other city officials embarked on an operation two weeks ago to clean the city by removing hundreds of people who slept under the M4 bridge in the Victoria Embankment area of the city.

The people were forced out of the tunnel and some of their belongings were torched or hauled to rubbish dumps.

Read more: A fresh approach to South Africa’s unemployment crisis is needed

According to NGOs, these people were dumped in Clairwood and others went to various shelters across the city, but many found their way back.

Ntuli has vowed to remove the people from the area. His spokesperson, Bongani Gina, said the premier was determined to clean the city and restore its place and reputation as an attractive tourist and investment destination.

End of the tunnel

eThekwini ward 32 councillor Protas Mngonyama told journalists that after the clean-up operation, the Victoria Embankment area had improved visibly and residents and visitors were able to walk freely in the area without fear of being mugged.

“I was hoping that the homeless would be taken to some centre where they would be permanently housed, but this has not happened, and now they are back where they were. This is very sad because we were hoping to turn this place around and make it safe. But we will continue with our efforts until we succeed,” Mngonyama said.

Dr Monique Marks, a Durban University of Technology lecturer and vice-chairperson of the Durban homeless committee, has done extensive research on the people living on Durban’s streets. She said such draconian measures will not yield the desired result.

Over the years, homelessness in the city has risen to anything between 8,000 and 10,000 people, she said.

“Very few of them come here because of drug use, but there are people within the homeless group who resort to petty crime like stealing and pickpocketing to make ends meet.

“But the vast majority of them are normal people who are trying hard to live in desperate economic times.

“The government and other members of society stigmatise them, calling them ‘paras’ [short for parasites] ... [But] the approach should be to try to get government shelters for the homeless,” she said.

Read more: Cold reality – many of us are closer to living on the street than we think

Raymond Perrier, head of the Denis Hurley Centre, which provides daily meals to the homeless in the Durban inner city, agreed that the government needed to be creative in seeking solutions to the plight of people living on the streets and also consult with them on the best ways to do it.

“We need… centres to cater for the homeless and those who have no IDs to be helped to replace them so that they can access social grants and services,” he said. DM

The Denis Hurley Centre will host a three-day conference on homelessness from 18-20 November. Visit denishurleycentre.org

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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South Africa

Making ends meet

Growing unemployment

Draconian measures

End of the tunnel