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 yesterday 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 process had been working every day, including weekends, since it 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 had contained 720 names, which dropped to 508 after duplications were removed.
“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.
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.
TimesLIVE
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