- Isaac Mpofu rents chairs to people queueing outside the Department of Home Affairs in Bellville.
- He started his business to earn a living and to pay off his university debt.
- Mpofu said he rents the chairs, R5 for 2 hours and R15 for the whole day, but the elderly and those with disabilities can sit free of charge.
In a bid to pay off his student debt, a 25-year-old has started a chair renting business outside the Home Affairs offices in Bellville, Cape Town and is now looking to expand to other government departments where people queue for hours.
Isaac Mpofu, who completed his BCom Financial Accounting degree at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) last year, is desperately trying to pay off his outstanding debt so he can obtain his qualification, which has been withheld due to outstanding student debt.
Speaking to News24, Mpofu, who is originally from Johannesburg, said he had to think of a way to earn a living, because he is qualified, but unemployed and needed to pay off the debt so that he could get his qualification.
He said he had started the process of looking for a job, so he could do his articles at the South African Institute of Professional Accountants (SAIPA), so that he could write board exams to qualify as an accountant.
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"In January, I first noticed the very long queues outside the Labour Department in Bellville and decided to approach some customers to rent out chairs from me at R5 for two hours or until they get inside the building," said Mpofu.
To his surprise many customers took him up on his offer, eagerly agreeing to pay R5 for two hours. After a week of renting chairs outside the department in Bellville, someone told him about the longer queues outside of the Department of Home Affairs in Bellville which were apparently much longer than the ones at the labour department.
Mpofu, who lives in Bellville, said when he got to Home Affairs he was "extremely shocked" and "sad" to see how long the queues were and how many elderly people had to stand in the queues for hours on end, some with crutches.
He said:
Mpofu added that, in addition to renting out the chairs for R5 for 2 hours, he charged R15 for the entire day.
"People over 60-years-old, those who have a disability or are sick, I don't charge them to rent out my chairs," he said.
Mpofu said he used his own chairs from home which he bought when he was still a student assistant at UWC.
With some of the money that he's made, he was able to buy more chairs and now rents out a total of 60 chairs per day.
"After each chair gets used, I sanitise the chairs, the customers' hands and ask them to please keep a distance between them," he stressed.
He stores his chairs in a storage room at a nearby shop where he pays R200 a week to keep them safe.
Lauren Jacobs who had been queuing in the lines with her two-year-old toddler said she was very impressed with Mpofu's initiative.
"Coming to Home Affairs is an absolute nightmare. I must get up very early to come stand in this ridiculous long queues with the hope of being helped early. But when I get here after 7am, the lines are already snaking and then sometimes we get told the system is offline. It's madness," she said.
She has had to travel to the Department of Home Affairs on more than one occasion and said she "thanks God" for Mpofu.
"I pay for Mpofu's service because I have a back problem and I have my two-year-old son with me who just wants to be on my lap. I don't mind giving out R15 for the entire day because I don't have the time or energy to be carrying chairs with me in public transport to get to Home Affairs," said Jacobs.
Mpofu said he worked from 06:00 to 15:30 and enjoys that he can provide a service to the public.
He added that some of his customers loved his idea so much, that they have asked him to also rent umbrellas for when it rains and to sell coffee.
Mpofu said he had also sent multiple emails to Sassa and Home Affairs since last December about renting his chairs to customers outside their offices, but had not received a response.
He plans on branching out to other departments and hopes to employ others to assist him with his business.
"Finding employment after leaving university is very difficult, so when I got this idea, I immediately started with it. The support and feedback has been mind-blowing, and I love that people love my idea," Mpofu said.
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