By Akani Nkuna
City of Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero on Monday launched a digital system to regulate informal trading in the inner-city.
The system will designate stands to legally fit traders, according to the city, to ensure they uphold and adhere to by-laws.
The invitation of new trading applicants would be based on “available space and policy provisions,” Morero said.
The digital system will “issue a card with a QR code so when we do out rounds we can verify whether a trader is legal in that space or not”.
Morero was addressing the media at the Joburg Theatre during the launch. He said the digital system was one of several initiatives undertaken by the city to restore order, cleanliness and economic vibrancy to the inner-city.
Earlier this month, the city and the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) conducted an enforcement operation in the De Villiers precinct, targeting traders operating in areas designated as no-trading zones under municipal by-laws. The precinct has reportedly been occupied by numerous informal traders despite the restrictions.
Working alongside the Department of Economic Development, the South African Police Service (SAPS) and immigration services, the operation focused on restoring order in the inner city, maintaining access to buildings, and safeguarding critical infrastructure essential to Johannesburg’s primary functions.
It is estimated that the inner city has about 20 000 to 25 000 informal traders across transport interchanges and township markets, contributing somewhere between 5% to 7% to the city’s total GDP, and sustains thousands of households, particular women-led.
Morero said that the crucial contribution the city makes to the country was being undone by unregulated trading, which had led to “overcrowding, obstruction of pedestrians and emergency accesses”. The city’s strategy was to regulate instead of prohibit informal trading, he added.
“Partnerships with the World Bank, the Gauteng Provincial Government and other stakeholders [are taking place] to identify additional trading zones… to ensure that we can regulate particular markets and trading zones to expand this economy,” said Morero.
He said the city would take action against lawlessness, within the boundaries of the law — even after some traders took the city to the High Court, alleging that recent enforcement operations violated earlier court rulings.
The mayor appealed to traders to trade in designated areas and added that trading permits were critical to doing business in the city. Permits would be strictly issued, he said, to prevent an overflow of traders.
Morero also said that clothing cannot be sold in the streets and that those doing so were breaking by-laws.
He discouraged citizens from acquiring permits on behalf of non-South African traders. “South Africans abdicate their own business interests and outsource their spaces to illegal and non-documented foreigners, which creates tension in society.
We need to call to SA citizens that once you are issued with a permit, it means you have demonstrated an interest to trade, therefore do what you have requested the city to help you with, which is trading, and do not outsource it.”
INSIDE METROS