Small business owners forced to pay ‘protection fees’ to ply their trade — and save their lives

For 13 years, a Burundian barber has cut young boys’ hair, experimenting with various hairstyles in his container barbershop.

In 2020, he was shocked when some of his former clients, brandishing firearms, showed up at his shop in Kraaifontein, Cape Town, to extort money from him. Since then, he has been forced to pay a R200 “protection fee” to gangs each month.

The barber is not alone — almost all small businesses in the sprawling township are besieged.

“I have been here for a long time and I have watched most of the boys grow up in this community,” he told the Sunday Times. He asked not to be identified, as he is scared he will be targeted by local gangs.

“I used to cut their hair and some of them would sit on my lap while I experimented with different hairstyles. Now I am paying a protection fee to them.”

The barber recalls the day the gangs introduced the protection fee. “Money was scarce at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was in the evening and I had just finished my last client when five guys barged in with firearms. They said, ‘We don’t want to hurt anyone — we are here to pass [on] a message’.

“They ransacked my shop and took money and my car. They said they would dump my car somewhere, and that I should look for it. They said, ‘From now on, you [will] have to pay a protection fee monthly’.”

Different gangs used to scramble to extort [money from] us and fought among themselves. Later they talked and divided the township into various extortion zones. They don’t fight over territory any more 

—  Anonymous Kraaifontein barber

He said he drove around the township the next day and found his car abandoned next to a park and undamaged.

“Recently, a young man came to collect the monthly payment, but I had not made much,” he said. “He got furious and video-called someone. An angry man in prison clothes popped up on the screen and threatened me. He said, ‘We need that money urgently — we want to spend it on something’. The man who had come to collect [the money] left empty-handed.”

The barber said the same man was shot dead a few weeks later.

“He was killed by another gang. That’s what happens here. Boys start by dropping out of school, [and then they] take drugs and join gangs. After that, you are almost certain they will be killed. It’s predictable.”

He said that, when the extortion started, various groups competed to collect the monthly payments.

“Different gangs used to scramble to extort [money from] us and fought among themselves,” he said. “Later they talked and divided the township into various extortion zones. They don’t fight over territory any more.”

Three other businesses were operating next to him in the same yard and the extortionists made R800 a month out of them.

Several small businesses — such as spaza shops, car washes, saloons and shebeens — operate on the same street.

“No-one is immune,” he said. “We all pay to save our lives.”

• This story was written in collaboration with Cape Peninsula University of Technology journalism students