CCBSA to assist street vendors

She said with an unemployment rate of 25.2 per cent, informal trading has become the “alternative to unemployment” for many South Africans.

“While hawkers may be unratified in the formal economy, informal trading continues to weather vast challenges that face our economy,” said Khadambi. “Informal vendors are found almost everywhere in our country, in areas like shopping centres, schools, stadiums when there is an event, taxi ranks, railway stations and largely at busy intersections on our roads.”

She said many South Africans are street hawking to make a living. “In principle, street hawking provides an environment for unemployed youth to make a living legally and not take part in criminal acts or unfavourable behaviour.

“Street hawkers are noteworthy customers of formalised businesses, trading their goods and services daily. Formalising the relations between these small business and formal business will assist in tracking this growing sector of our economy and ultimately its contribution to the country’s GDP.

“Challenges faced by the street hawker include financial assistance for a business startup, training in basic skills on how to run a business, and infrastructure, including basic services like water and electricity.”

The 2016 census put the total population in South Africa at an estimated 55.9-million people. “South Africa’s unemployment rate came in at 27.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2017,” said Khadambi. “The youth unemployment rate increased to 55.9 per cent in the second quarter of 2017 from 54.3 per cent in the first quarter.”

In support of Gauteng premier David Makhura’s Tshepo One Million programme, CCBSA Gauteng Region has partnered with other organisations to create a more conducive environment for informal vendors to continue running their operations.

“Fourways, Deveyton, Baragwanath and Katlehong are just some of the areas identified for the inception of the informal vendors’ project, through which they aim to find staunch solutions to challenges faced by street hawkers,” said Khadambi. These challenges include “being infringed by municipal by-laws, delays in granting lease permits for stalls at commuter hot-spots, being forcefully removed or prohibited from selling at intersections, and many other challenges”.

In conclusion, Khadambi said CCBSA “is a responsible corporate citizen which prides itself on the role it plays in the economy of the country and the socio-economic impact it has, particularly in the Gauteng region. CCBSA has developed an exciting route-to-market plan to support street hawkers, thus essentially supporting the Department of Economic Development’s stance on small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) and in particular addressing the plight of unemployed youth in the country.”