Meet the active citizens behind the protest movement leading a rates boycott while the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality fumbles its finances and service delivery. They call themselves amateurs, but they're getting things done.

If the average Durban municipal office had a smidgen of the energy found in the headquarters of the eThekwini Rates Protest Movement, Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda and his council wouldn't have to give a fig about Asad Gaffar (51).

Alas, that is not the case, which is why the civic campaigner is spearheading a rates boycott and slugging it out with the municipality in court. Gaffar's day job is being a salesman. He flogs fast-moving consumer goods, but he's not a slick dude with a flash smile and lots of cologne. He has probably never read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.

But he has amassed a bit of a following. Not with snappy jokes or the polished one-liners you'd expect from a salesman, but rather because he's trading in huge discontent with the eThekwini municipality.

It's not a happy story and Gaffar scowls, chugs on a cigarette, and often excuses himself to answer his cellphone. Calls are quick and to the point, a bit like he's processing an order for mielie meal or any other food item he sells when he's not fighting with Kaunda.

Luckily for Gaffar, his protest movement isn't one man and a fax...