Tensions between local authorities and hawkers over trading on side walks and parking bays are still simmering.
Tensions between local authorities and hawkers over trading on side walks and parking bays are still simmering.
A group of hawkers who continue to trade illegally at a prohibited area say they won't move their businesses elsewhere and that law enforcers should "stop victimising them".
Thabiso Ntjolo, from Lesotho, and two of his compatriots Mohlatsi Letopo and Motlatsi 'Junior' Mava have been trading at the side of the busy intersection between Bathurst and Beaufort streets since 2010. According to Ntjolo, Makana Traffic cops come at least three times a month to confiscate their stock or pay fines of R300 to retain it.
Letopo said Makana Health Department officials told them that their stands obstruct the view of the motorists approaching the traffic lights. He said the department told them to move their businesses to Market Square in Beaufort Street.
"That area is overcrowded with street vendors offering the same products as us, so our businesses won't do well there," he said.
"We like this area." Ntjolo said the R300 fine is too high as their daily business takings don't even average that amount.
Makana Traffic Department senior superintendent Guliano Flotman denied they were targeting them. "We are not victimising them, but we are just doing our jobs as a law enforcement unit," he said.
"That area they are trading in is prohibited as stipulated in the Makana by-laws." Flotman said the hawkers were illegal operators and must go to the health department to get trading permits valid for one year at a cost of R50.
According to municipal by-laws no person may carry out street trading in a street where trading is prohibited, or where it may obstruct sidewalks or interfere with the ability of persons using the sidewalks to view the goods displayed in a shop window or within five metres of an intersection.
Trading is also prohibited if it obstructs a fire hydrant, the entrance to, or exit from a building, traffic, access to a pedestrian crossing, parking or loading bay or if it obscures a traffic sign or other signs or is located near a residence if the owner or occupant objects.
