Street vendors up in arms

Faced with onerous municipal regulations, cross border restrictions, as well as constant harassment from authorities, street vendors from South Africa and Lesotho are organising themselves and taking their fight to both governments.

While hawkers trading in the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality complain about stifling municipal by-laws, there are over 600 informal traders from Lesotho operating without permits or passports in the metro.

To deal with these challenges, StreetNet International in partnership with Cosatu and Samwu held an informal meeting in Bloemfontein recently to look into ways of assisting street vendors in South Africa, as well as neighbouring countries.
StreetNet is an international organisation that deals with informal traders organisations in South Africa in the interest of street vendors across borders.

The informal traders from Lesotho who operate in Bloemfontein are the ones who suffer the most as they often come into the country without work permits.

According to the Lesotho Hawkers Association, Sello Sa Basotho, the Lesotho vendors working in SA face exploitation and harassment from authorities.

The association’s Paseka Nalana said it is difficult for vendors to operate as legitimate sellers as the Lesotho government demands a work contract before they can issue them with work permits. Traders unlike students and workers cannot produce legal contracts from South Africa, hence they are denied work permits.

“There is prejudice against the Basotho traders in Lesotho, as well as in South Africa. The police stop them on the streets of Bloemfontein and ask them for work permits. In most cases, they do not have passports due to poor service at the border posts. Sometimes when they ask for 30 days passport permits, they are unaware they will be provided with three days passport permits. After entering the country, they realise that their passport expire within days and it is costly to ask for more time.

“There are over 600 Lesotho citizens in Bloemfontein who do not have passports and these include builders, domestics, and general labourers. These two governments must help these people to move freely into this country by providing them with the necessary documents, or remove these borders to enable them to make a living in South Africa. Our Lesotho government must initiate this process.”

Cosatu provincial secretary Sam Mashinini said street vendors must be organised and speak with one voice.

“The challenge is there are different by-laws for different municipalities and those by-laws sometimes do not take into consideration the needs of hawkers.

Firstly, we need to make sure hawkers are organised so that when they speak, they speak with authority as an organisation. Now you have the Mangaung Hawkers Association, if there is anything that they would propose to the Mangaung Municipality, they should say that through their organisation.”

Mashinini said during a meeting with hawkers associations, they dealt with the major challenges facing street vendors such as cross-border trading and crime associated with this trade. The other challenge is the issuing of permits to street vendors. The metro confiscates the goods of traders who do not have permits, and according to Mashinini, this takes away their only livelihood.

He said the federation will approach the South African and Lesotho governments and petition them to facilitate documentation and easy movement for informal traders. He added that this can only happen after traders associations have been formalised and they have developed constitutions for their organisations.

“We can speak with people we know are deployed in high echelons in terms of engaging the two governments. Hawkers are trying to make an honest living. But on these streets you will find the situation where the one party says to another, ‘Do not sell next to me’. This is where the issue of stalls comes in.

They fight for territory. Our government and municipalities must confront and resolve this problem and not turn a blind eye. Our view is that there is a need for hawkers to be organised into union that will represent its member’s interests.”

Two informal traders’ organisations – the South African Alliance of Street Vendors and Southern African Cross Border Traders Association – deals with street vendors’ challenges and rights.

The informal cross border trade sector in the SADC region plays an important role in uplifting communities in border regions. It contributes towards employment creation, economic growth, and poverty alleviation. It also plays an important role in ensuring food security by moving goods and services from where there is a surplus to where there is a deficit.

The metro’s spokesperson, Qondile Khedama, said street vendors must have a permit that is obtainable from the economic development sub-directorate at the municipal offices.

“Once the request of the permit has been approved, there is a once-off payment of R50 for administration. This permit has to be renewed annually. From there they are expected to pay R30 per month. The R30 is used for rental fee for the site that is allocated to them by the municipality.”

Khedama added that the city designates areas where people involved in informal trading and vendors must operate from.

“This assists the city with strengthening regulation because some of the areas are not meant for trading. For an example, sometimes informal traders impose themselves in front of supermarkets that sell the same products. This has bearing on another business.”

Khedama explained that the sector is regulated to assist the metro maintains the cleanliness of the central business district and other business district areas in the city.
He said the procedure to acquire a permit is simple and straightforward.

“The person should be a South African citizen above the age of 18, must be unemployed, and preferably residing within the jurisdiction of Mangaung Metro. In a case where an applicant is a foreigner, he/she must submit the necessary immigration documentation. There are penalties depending on the degree of an offence – a R500 fine and/or goods could be confiscated.”

Informal traders still face enormous challenges in the SADC region due to lack of laws governing informal trading. Regional policy frameworks dealing with trade include the SADC Protocol on Trade which has been adopted by all SADC member states, including South Africa, excluding Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But it only addresses formal trade.

The SADC Finance and Investment Protocol was signed but has not been ratified yet and the SADC Protocol on Trade and Services is yet to be signed and ratified. Meanwhile, the SADC Advocacy Policy on Informal Cross Border Trade is an action framework of the strategy that has not been implemented yet. The Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan was signed and adopted in 2003, but is being reviewed.

In the meantime, both local and foreign street vendors are determined to fight for their rights to trade freely without fear of harassment.