Former Zimbabwean footballer and Orlando Pirates defender Zvenyika Makonese has fallen on hard times and has resorted to touting in South Africa. Makonese who has a history of juvenile delinquency is now a peddler at Newton Taxi Rank in Johannesburg where he is luring passengers and loading luggage on cross-border buses.
Sources close to the footballer said Makonese was now surviving in menial jobs in order to put food on his table. The decision to work as a tout popularly known as a ‘hwindi’ in Zimbabwe came roughly eight months after Makonese’s wife and kids received donations from Impact for Christ Ministries last year after the couple failed to settle their rental arrears at their Wenchester plush home.
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With touting, Makonese reportedly receives an average of R100 to R150 per day depending on the business of the day on whether there is a bus taking the Jo’burg to Harare route or he gets nothing.The footballer was is alleged to be employed as an assistant bus conductor was in 2018 fined R3000 by a Beitbridge magistrate after he was convicted of stealing a G-tel A718 cellphone from a police officer.
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The accuser Melody Masiya had asked one of the bus crews at Beitbridge border post to recharge her phone using the bus phone charger. Makonese pleaded not guilty to a charge of theft when he appeared before resident magistrate Miss Gloria Takundwa but was convicted on the strength of overwhelming evidence.
The former Orlando Pirates defender escaped jail after the magistrate slapped him with one month imprisonment with an option of a fine. Prosecuting, Mr Jabulani Mberesi told the court that on an unknown date but in August this year, the police officer who was at Beitbridge Border Post approached one Farai Chinyani, a driver at Ngonweni bus services so that he could recharge her cell phone using the bus phone charger.
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