Hawkers at the proposed informal trading market centre in Dr Jacob Zuma Drive are still waiting for the Makana Municipality to finish the construction work they started.
Hawkers at the proposed informal trading market centre in Dr Jacob Zuma Drive are still waiting for the Makana Municipality to finish the construction work they started.
The centre, opposite the Jackie Chan Henry store, was intended to provide the hawkers with shelter after they asked the municipality for a decent place to do their business.
According to the only remaining hawker operating from the site, NoEaster Cakuma, the municipality instructed them to vacate the area while the construction was going on.
Cakuma, 60, said she started selling at the site in the 1970's and that this is her only way of making money. "Other people who used to sell here left when the municipality people told us to go somewhere else. This is sad because those people depended on this business and now they are doing nothing."
The market square appears vandalised with its broken paving bricks, and is deserted apart from a few goats roaming around. Cakuma says that children use it as a playing field. She added that the municipality promised them that they were going to clean up the area and cut down the surrounding bushes.
"We thought this was going to be done faster. But until now nothing has been done ever since they did the paving and erected the lights. We do not even have toilets and water here, and a water tap was taken out by the municipality claiming that the car washers are misusing the water."
Municipality spokesperson Thandy Matebese said: "The market square is completed and the official hand over will take place soon. It will be used as a pilot site for informal traders and the project managers for the Neighbourhood Development Partnership Grant are busy drafting speculations for providing informal trading facilities."
He said the Environmental Services Department is responsible for handling applications for informal traders.
