By Akani Nkuna
The City of Johannesburg mayor, Dada Morero, has warned that the city lacks the capacity to allocate stalls and issue trading permits to all informal traders, saying that there is going to be a shortfall and private land might need to utilise to accommodate the surging numbers of applicants.
“At current, we are seating at about 208 stalls, which in essence means we do not have sufficient space. We are still looking at other areas if we can still continue to allocate, but it is also import to note that we may not have the capacity to allocate throughout the CoJ,” he said.
“There will be a shortfall. We do have a long-term strategy there are already areas which are privately owned, which we want to acquire as the city and convert into trading markets. Yes, we are going to have a challenge; therefore, we have to regulate this area.”
Morero was addressing the media at the Johannesburg International Transport Interchange on Tuesday, to provide an update on the verification of informal traders and allocation of stalls in the inner city.
This follows the city’s legal battle with the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI) earlier this month, where the organisation curtailed that the city was infringing upon the informal traders rights to trade and make a living and sought to halt the removal of informal traders in the inner city.
Early in October, the City conducted multiple campaigns aimed at enforcing the city’s by-laws, urban clean-up and revitalise the inner through targeting and removal of informal traders from undesignated trading areas and was heavily criticised with SERI leading the charges in taking the city to court questioning the legality of the campaigns.
The South Gauteng High Court ordered the City of Johannesburg to expedite in 14 days, 4 November until 18 November, the registration, allocation stalls and also provide alternative measures to the traders to ensure that they do not suffer profit loss.
Morero outlined that in contrast to the 720 informal traders list presented by SERI in court, only came forward to register thus enabling the city to complete the verification and clear 161 informal traders and issue them permit cards to resume operating as early as Friday this week.
Furthermore, of the 161 verified, 13 of were suspends permits, whilst 9 did not quality as result of incorrect documentation and 72 naturalised traders are also amongst the ones verified and cleared.
“We are also looking at other areas within the city where we have got other markets because we have now received a total number of 2819 of completely new applicants who want to start their businesses and trade in the city. We are looking at other markets where they could be allocated,” Morero added.
The mayor emphasised that the stalls cannot be sub-letted and need to be operated by traders whom the permit belongs to, warning that those found subletting will have their trading permits revoked and discouraged South Africans of renting their stalls to illegal foreign nationals saying that “it defeats the purpose of empowering citizens.”
The city’s Economic Development MMC, Nomoya Mnisi says that the lower turn-out in the verification process vindicates the city’s claims that most of informal traders in the inner city are in operating illegally and conceded that some might have passed on.
She also accused SERI of lobbying community leaders against the city and the court verdict which ordered the expedition of stall registrations, emphasising that although investigations into the allegations are ongoing it depicts the organisation as having an axe to grind than actually achieving a conducive environment for the informal traders to operate within the framework of the city’s by-laws.
“We do have allegations from community members, we have allegations from leaders of buildings in the inner city who confirmed with us that they were convened by SERI to write petitions and act against the court [order] and say that they are not happy with the verdict,” Mnisi added.
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