The City of Johannesburg has stepped into the ongoing feud at Pan Africa Square and is conducting an audit of container hawkers.
The City’s Elliot Dubase, when approached by Alex News, said his colleagues were moving from container stall to container stall asking hawkers to produce their registration papers that he would compare with those on their list. He added they had been asked by the City’s Economic Development Department to verify the tenants occupying the stalls.
Accompanied by police, Dubase said they were ordered to only check those people trading from container stalls as they were the people sanctioned by the City to trade on the streets of Pan.
“We going to go to each one of the container traders and verify their names with the list we have for each container stall. So far, we have discovered that there is a degree of sub-letting of the stalls. There are other people that have since passed on that were reported to the City and their immediate families have taken over but the list has not been updated,” he said.
When asked what will happen once the audit was completed, Dubase said their task was simply to verify the container stall owners and the rest was for the City to decide.
Meanwhile, a slight change of tactics by Alexandra Dudula Movement and its sister organisation #OperationFiyela has resulted in a measurable easing of tensions on both sides at Pan and business is going on as usual. Also, the usual daily routine of the KwaMadala Hostel goats was going ahead as they invade the square to forage on discarded vegetable and maize leaves.
Some traders who preferred not to be identified or their pictures taken told Alex News the situation seems to have returned to normal as no violent incidents have been witnessed since the events of last Monday and Tuesday which saw a tense stand-off between Dudula members and foreign nationals.
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