Joburg clean sweep leaves traders in the lurch
JOHANNESBURG - While the municipality’s clean sweep campaign seeks to ‘bring back the glory days of Joburg’, hard times mount for informal traders as days go by without making a cent.
Informal trader Esther Ndlovu (79) stood in the scorching sun, outside the Metro Centre in Braamfontein, waiting for her turn to submit documents for verification to trade in the inner city.
“I was here yesterday and I went back home without any help. There are hundreds of people here; I don’t know where I’m going to get the transport money to come back again tomorrow.”
Ndlovu started selling wash towels, soaps and steal wool on Ellof Street in 1991. She said the profit she made helped her survive for all these years. “But last night I went to bed hungry, for the first time after many years,” she added.
An Ethiopian trader, Fereru Harery, said despite having obtained his permit to trade on the corner of Noord and Klein Streets in 2007, his block leader refused to issue him with a smartcard. Informal traders are required to have a smartcard in order to trade.
“The Metro police confiscated my goods because I don’t have a smartcard and said I must pay R2000. I don’t have money, I moved out of my flat and I’m homeless. I now stay at the Methodist Church on Small Street,” he said.
Municipal spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane said the process to verify informal traders followed an agreement with the informal traders’ leaders.
“The city agreed to resume with a verification process of screening traders who are eligible to trade in the inner city, and establish if some were legally in the country,” he said.
After the verification process, legal traders would then be allocated trading space.
Modingoane said leaders were asked to inform traders that the process would happen block by block, starting in Hoek, De Villiers, King George, Wanderers, Albertina Sisulu, Klein and President Streets.
“It is clear that some of the traders who are here are not even from the identified streets. There’s nothing wrong with people exercising their entrepreneurial skills but that must not infringe the city’s bylaws,” he added.
He further affirmed the city’s obligation to create a safe and hygienic environment in Johannesburg.
Modingoane added that all legal traders must adhere to the house rules by keeping their trading places neat and allow for the free flow of pedestrians and vehicles.
