JOHANNESBURG — Former Zimbabwe international and Orlando Pirates defensive stalwart Zvenyika Makonese has fallen from grace.
Makonese, who has a history of indiscipline, is now a tout at Newtown taxi rank, Johannesburg, where his duties include luring passengers, loading goods and luggage on cross-border buses.
A visit to Newtown by CAJ News this week confirmed Makonese indeed was a spent force, and survived on menial jobs in order to fend for his family.
The move to work as a “tout”, commonly known as hwindi in Zimbabwe, comes eight months after his wife and children received church donations at Impact for Christ Ministries sometime in December, after the couple failed to pay rentals at their Wenchester suburb home.
For the current “job”, Makonese receives an average of R100 to R150 per day depending on whether there is a bus travelling from Johannesburg to Harare . . . unless there is, he gets nothing.
“Touting is not an easy job. Sometimes you behave like a mad man in order to lure passengers to come to your bus . . . at times you pull them or lift them on to the bus, otherwise you lose out,” said Lameck Chivero, who cooks food for travellers in the Newtown terminus.
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“This kind of job is for the fittest, not weak men! Sometimes the touts physically fight for customers,” Joshua Magumbate added.
He abused the opportunity to invest when he was still the captain at Santos before moving another step up the ladder when he played for Pirates.
“Now he is competing with renowned touts to pull for passengers travelling to Zimbabwe, and he has gone completely into it,” said Ranga Murefu. Effort to get comment from Makonese proved fruitless as his heavily-built friends and colleagues did not allow access to him, threatening the CAJ News crew with physical harm if they dared report his disgrace.