WATCH | City of Joburg issues permits, allocates stalls as it ‘cleans up’ informal trading areas

Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero says the city has started allocating stalls and issuing smart cards to registered street traders in the inner city.

Morero and MMC for economic development Nomoya Mnisi briefed journalists on Tuesday to update them on the high court-ordered verification of traders, a process the city said is now revealing the true extent of undocumented and illegal trading in Johannesburg.

Morero said the multidisciplinary team deployed for the verification had been working every day, including weekends, since the process began on November 4.

“We have onboarded many traders from the AK1 and AK2 court list, verified their documentation and issued the first group with permits. Stall allocations have also commenced in markets where space is immediately available,” he said.

The city’s recent evictions of informal street traders was challenged in court by the South African Informal Traders’ Forum and the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (Seri). The city said the Seri list contained 720 names, which dropped to 508 after removing duplications.

“Where we are now, we have verified and cleared at least 161 traders. We are handing out smart cards today to 44 of the 161, and by Friday they will be allocated their stalls so that they can start trading.”

Of the 500 listed, the bulk of them did not have ID numbers or passports, which confirms that the reason they did not come through is because they’re illegal and undocumented. It’s unlikely that when I know I’m undocumented I would hand myself over, so they’ve disappeared into thin air

—  Dada Morero, Joburg mayor

The city identified:

• 72 traders whom Morero described as “fully fledged, born-and-bred South Africans” who have now been allocated stalls.
• 67 traders who have been naturalised as South African citizens.
• 13 traders who fall under what officials call “suspense permits”. These are cases where the original stallholder has died and a family member is seeking to take over the stand. “We are verifying the necessary documents and they will then be allocated the stands,” said Morero.
• Nine people on the list who do not qualify because they are in South Africa on visitor visas. “They are in South Africa with passports. Remember, when you visit a country you are given a visa permit which expires in 90 days. They basically do not qualify to trade or to have a stand. They must return home.”

Fresh permit requests have been pouring in too from prospective traders. Morero said the city was dealing with 2,819 new applications. This as the city has a shortage of stalls, with only 208 available.

“We are looking at other markets where they could be allocated space to trade,” he said. “We may not have the capacity to allocate space throughout Johannesburg, which then says the department together with the traders will have to look at some innovation on what else we can do to ensure that we support small business,” he said.

Morero said fire safety rules are complicating allocations for food vendors as they need fire to cook. “Those who are cooking and selling food must be 6m apart. It’s the requirement, the fire regulation. Our stalls are not 6m apart, so we need to respond to that.”

The poor turnout from people on Seri’s list confirmed that many were trading illegally, he said. “Of the 500 listed, the bulk of them did not have ID numbers or passports, which confirms that the reason they did not come through is because they’re illegal and undocumented. It’s unlikely that when I know I’m undocumented I would hand myself over, so they’ve disappeared into thin air.”

Mnisi supported this assessment, saying the verification process has validated the city’s long-held concerns. “It confirms our stance that people were trading illegally on our streets, in our markets,” she said.

The city will continue with its precinct-by-precinct clean-up of illegal trading areas, said Morero. “This was our first project, which has been successful. We’ll be moving into other areas that are not designated for trading but there’s illegal trading happening. We will be dealing with those until we have cleared the city properly and there’s order.”

The city is planning for long-term expansion of trading spaces, he added. “There is privately owned land which we would like to acquire and convert into markets. We want to have markets in buildings where people have proper shops.”

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