Lifeline for informal food traders

Co-operative governance  & traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma threw  informal food traders a lifeline on Thursday night when she announced they would be allowed to trade again.

In an amendment to the 21-day lockdown regulations, Dlamini-Zuma not only clarified that all spaza shops should stay open,  but said all informal food traders could also operate provided they obtain a permit from their local municipality. 

Dlamini-Zuma's announcement seemingly will not benefit all informal traders, however.    

Those who specialise in clothing, for example, still wonder where their next meal is coming from, and many small businesses are in a desperate battle for survival only a week into the national lockdown.

Since the lockdown began at midnight last Thursday, busy commercial areas like Oxford Street in East London, usually teeming with hawkers, have been eerily quiet as vendors remain home for fear of catching the coronavirus.

The SA Informal Traders Alliance (Saita) has called for the government to give each of the country’s estimated three million hawkers a R3,000 stipend for the lockdown period, and for many in the Eastern Cape such an allocation cannot come soon enough.

The province already has a vast unemployment figure — the official statistic is 39.5%, but on the expanded unemployment definition, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, almost every second person in the province is unemployed.

The lockdown has forced most informal traders off the streets, while township spaza shops have struggled to assert their right to continue trading in the face of police action.

PLAAS, the institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape, says the lockdown will have severe implications for poor people's access to food and for those in the informal economy.

Hawker Thembeka Gawulekhaya, 58, has been selling clothes in Mthatha for 34 years. She never imagined she would be sitting at home with no way to provide food for her children.

“I have a graduate who is also sitting here with me unemployed and the situation has been really hard on us.”

Gawulekhaya said their hopes were pinned on the government to provide food for their families.

“We had a meeting with government officials on Wednesday and they told us we will be assisted but we have lost hope. We will see that when it happens.”

Prior to Dlamini-Zuma's announcement, Mdantsane rights activist Rita Bushula told the Dispatch vendors were being hit hard by the lockdown.

“They are suffering. They had already bought food to re-sell and now it is being wasted.”

In Libode, Max Mazwai said the town had “cleared off all street vendors”.

“Most of them are elderly women from villages surrounding Libode. They come in every morning with their wares.”

Taxis from the local Thabo Mbeki township have hiked fares from R10 to R20 and Mthatha-bound taxis “suddenly” increased fares from R20 to R25.

Economists estimate SA’s informal economy at 18% of the GDP, and the government has acknowledged that the informal sector has to be looked after during this critical time.

This week, small business development minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni unveiled a scheme to assist spaza shop owners during the lockdown.

The support to spaza shops would not discriminate according to whether they were owned by South Africans or foreign nationals. As long as they were properly registered, all would receive assistance, Ntshavheni said.

Details about when applications would open were due to be announced on Thursday, but no announcement had been made at the time of writing.

On Friday, rural development & agrarian reform MEC  Nomakhosazana Meth will be in Cradock to hand over food parcels and fresh vegetables to hawkers.

“Hawkers are integral to the SA economy, offering easy access to a wide range of goods and services in public spaces,” Meth’s spokesperson Ayongezwa Lungisa said on Thursday.  

“The impact of Covid-19 on hawkers and small businesses has been severe. Covid-19 has affected their trade, with some being unable to put food on the table.”

Many smaller businesses are struggling.

Makhanda barbershop owner Siyabulela Tate Hoboshe and his three employees will have no income during the lockdown.

“It truly is a challenging time for all of us. The worst part is having to pay rent at the end of the month, let alone our personal expenses.”

Tate’s Barbershop’s neighbour on High Street is Room Service Linen Supply, owned by Thantaswa Botile, who invested all her money in setting up and opening the store in January and is a long way from recovering her investment.

“I’m not coping. My business depends on people coming, seeing items they need and then buying. I don’t see my business surviving this.”

Border-Kei Chamber of Business executive director Les Holbrook said some of the chamber’s members were saying that by the end of the third week “they won’t have money left.”

Rosheda Muller, president-elect of the SA Informal Traders Alliance (Saita), told the Dispatch a R3,000 payment would “go a long way” towards easing the burden on hawkers.

She admitted it would be difficult to distribute the R3,000, since most informal traders were not organised, but said they were working with  Cosatu to mobilise informal traders.

Catholic Bishop of Mthatha Sithembele Sipuka said poor people would be doubly affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

“It will decimate huge numbers of people” and the stress of “sitting at home for 21 days” means people have no “means to provide for themselves”. — Additional reporting by Bhongo Jacob and Mkhululi Ndamase