What do you do when you need to start queueing for a SASSA payout or at Home Affairs for a document at 3am – but you also need to take care of your family or go to work?
A Cape business is charging township residents R50 to queue for them at government offices with long lines, GroundUp reports.
The new business in Nyanga near Gugulethu also charges R10 to walk with people before dawn.
Four men started the business called Thumamina Sikuyele.
“We were tired of sitting around and not doing anything,” said one of the business founders, Bahle Ngqula.
“I heard residents complaining about having to wake up early. Many people visit these departments every day for a week without being helped because of the long queues. So we started the business.”
His business partner Welile Ndlambe told GroundUp they’d expand if they could get bicycles and meet the demand for queuing at other places like banks.
Gugulethu resident Lindiwe Patuleni approves of the business.
“We will support them because they are not robbing people. I’m going to use them whenever I want to go to places where there are long queues,” she said.
