ISAAC MAZUNDI (30) decided that renewing his car’s licence disc wasn’t a good idea.
A better idea, he thought, would be to drive with a muthi broom to sweep cops away.He said it worked – until he forgot to renew THE muthi!
Isaac’s luck ran out yesterday when puzzled cops pulled him over and slapped him with a fine!
He was shocked when they pulled him over during a roadblock on Atlas Road, Ekurhuleni.
But he remembered he hadn’t gone back to his sangoma this year to get a new dose for the car’s broom.
Cops thought they’d just stopped a skorokoro but were more shocked to find a broom and a padlock in the engine.
And they spotted his licence disc, which expired in 2016.
Police didn’t hesitate to slap him with a R1 500 fine and took his car off the road for not being roadworthy.
Isaac, from Ivory Park near Tembisa, tried to convince the cops the car belonged to his uncle but they didn’t buy his story.
Eventually, he had to accept defeat. He told the SunTeam the broom was to sweep away traffic cops and the padlock was to protect the car from thieves and hijackers.
“I collect scrap and don’t make much money from it,” he said.
“Taking the car to be made roadworthy would have cost me more money than I make, so I chose the cheaper option of the broom.”
Isaac did not disclose how much he paid for the muthi broom but insisted it was cheaper than getting his disc fixed.
Sangoma Mirriam Motlale said the padlock was stuffed with muthi to protect it from thieves.
“It’s an African anti-hijack tool. With the padlock in your car, no one will steal it,” she said.
The SunTeam was shocked to see Isaac’s car had pieces of its engine missing. The bonnet was tied closed with a piece of rope.
Isaac said he was on his way home from delivering scrap in Boksburg when he was stopped. “The car helped us put bread on the table, and now that it’s off the road we don’t know how we’re going to survive,” he said.
Isaac said he had learnt his lesson and won’t let his licence disc – or his broom – expire again.