Esthood to protection, to private investigator
work on the investigative side presents such opportunities. Most involves disputes between two parties, either in marriage or in business. But I do sometimes get to take out some corrupt bastards.”
Jardine also prides himself on his honesty, speaking with startling frankness sometimes about his past, admitting freely to his successes and failures. But he believes the mistakes of the past have made him a stronger, better person.
He was born in Durban in 1963 and matriculated from Queensburgh Boys’ High School.
“I then went to the seminary – now St Joseph’s Theological Institute – in Cedara for two years. I felt I had a sense of vocation, one that had been with me since childhood. I still have that sense today – a calling to serve my fellow man – although it now finds expression in different ways.”
He enjoyed his stay there but as time passed he began to have doubts about the church’s dogmatism and exclusivity.
“The view that Christianity was the only way to heaven worried me. I felt there must be lots of room in heaven for a devout Hindu, a devout Jew or a devout Muslim. They are all surely the same as a devout Christian in the eyes of God.”
Jardine discussed his views with his spiritual director. “I must say he accepted I had a right to my own views and allowed me to draw my own conclusions.
“But bit by bit we came to the mutual agreement that my perceptions were not suited to the priesthood. I left… but in no way felt pushed. I also felt I wanted a family at some stage.”
His interest was still in religion and he enrolled at the University of Natal in Maritzburg to study religious phenomenology.
He abandoned his studies two credits short of a degree because of financial pressure aggravated by a motorcycle accident. “I had meanwhile objected to doing military service. Then, in 1985, I was given conscientious objector status and called up to serve the intelligence function in a government department – in lieu of military service.”
While still officially in the department’s employ, he started a one-man private investigation business. “I had been doing research in the department and felt PI work would be something similar. I bought a desk at auction for R600 and rushed to the bank to beg the manager not to bounce the cheque.
“I then put a one-line ad, PI for hire, in the Witness newspaper and it brought me my first case – a court battle between parents trying to get custody of their children, amid claims of sexual abuse.”
List
Jardine charged R20 an hour for his services in the case. “It was more money than I had ever seen – enough to finance my business and to employ a secretary and a tracer. After a few months I bought a computer.”
He had drawn up a list of attorneys in Pietermaritzburg and sent each a letter of introduction.
By 1990 – “still with no knowledge of business” – he had more than 20 tracing agents doing work for legal firms throughout the province. “But I was being paid only 90 days later and eventually ran out of money.”
Jardine closed his business, took a job for two years, settled his unpaid debts and in 1992 moved to Durban. “It was a good move. My new PI business, Willem Jardine and Associates, did well. I also learned some useful lessons.”
He then started a security guard division and armed response company. “In 2000, the security company ADT made me an offer and I sold them my armed response client base.
“I still had the PI agency and guarding division, and was starting to build my risk management consultancy.”
By 2001, the client base of his tracing agency had become national. “But our investigations client base was still primarily provincial. We were comfortable – cruising and making good money.
“In 2011, we decided to grow to corporate proportions. We opened offices in Joburg and Cape Town and I got a partner, Mutshutshu Nxumalo, a Pietermaritzburg businessman. “Our first black empowerment deal was with the Public Protector in late 2011. We were appointed to the panel of investigators, now dissolved.”
Jardine said his electronics division had not until recently been a “major focus” of his business. “We never really marketed it. We only served those people who came to us.
“We sold and installed alarms, access control systems, closedcircuit television, and monitored and responded to alarms.”
But this, he said, was about to change with electronics about to become a “core service” .
“We concluded an agreement with a Chinese manufacturer to import, distribute, sell, install and maintain the latest internet protocol CCTV at much the same price as analogue systems.”
Jardine said the “cruising” nature of his business was to change with the onset of a concerted drive into electronics.
“We are turning over R4 million a year. I believe we can push that to R7m quickly.”
He said the nature of his business had changed over the years – from mainly matrimonial work which he found “distasteful”.
“The corporate rate is R750 an hour; a forensic audit can cost R2 000 an hour and a forensic accident reconstruction is R1 400 an hour, as we call in the experts.”
Jardine sees his life as a “seamless progression” with integrity playing a key role.