BETHAL – Shop owners and residents are frustrated with the street hawkers in town.
They sell the same products as some of the shop owners, which means a loss of business profit and business efficiency.
“It is possible for the hawkers to sell their products at a cheaper price, because they do not have to pay taxes, rent or water and electricity fees,” a business owner said.
The exhibitions on the sidewalk prevent pedestrians from walking on the pavements and some people avoid this area.
“It is easy to conclude that less people visit the shops, because of a lack of space on the pavements.”
Street hawkers make it easy for crime such as pick pocketing, robbery and trading of illegal products.
Standard Bank and Absa are financial institutions that deal with huge amounts of cash.
“When you go to these banks, you have to pass several informal traders on the pavement.
“Old people are too afraid to go the banks because of the hawkers.”
Mainstream critics of street venders argue that vendors compete unfairly against off-street establishments, because they do not incur registration and taxation costs and do not have costs such as rent and utility payments.
This creates unfair competition, the argument goes, and takes business away from off-street establishments, threatening their viability. Local governments should “formalise” street vendors by relocating them to off-street premises where they would be expected to register, pay taxes and rent or own their workplace.
Street vending raises tension between the individual right to work and the collective right to public space.
In most countries, public space is understood as a collective good that all people have a right to enjoy, and it is the responsibility of local government to regulate its use so that those collective rights may be enjoyed.
Opponents of street vendors argue that those collective rights are violated when street vendors appropriate public space for their own use.
In this view, Government must defend public space from such encroachments by strictly regulating or even outlawing street vending.
Street vendors are an integral component of urban economies around the world.
“They do not have a toilet, so they just do their business there next to the road and it stinks when we are in our backyard,” said a resident.
Hawkers sit on the pavement at the OK groceries store and where the traffic circle used to be.
For the street hawkers this is their way of getting money, to take care of their families and to have an income.
“Is there not another way for street hawkers to still sell their products in a location given to them with toilets by the municipality?”
The head of marketing and communications of the Govan Mbeki Municipality, Mr Henry Masango, said that street vending is an important aspect of the local economic development, but it has to be done within set parameters and they have to be licensed, trade at designated spots, upkeep of set hygienic standards, the environs and overall street cleansing aspects.
If this protocol is not followed, then law enforcement will be conducted so as to maintain order
