The Eastern Cape town of Bisho is fast becoming a ghost town, reports Peter Dickson
There was a time when all it took was a cathedral to transform a town into a city, but in the modern consumer age, the shopping mall appears to be the deciding factor.
In Bisho, an almost medieval enclave built by Ciskei dictator Lennox Sebe in the early 1980s, the shutdown of the only shopping mall has set pulses racing.
Rapidly declining buying power has forced Pick ‘n Pay, which prides itself on pinpointing development growth areas for its outlets, to pull out in favour of King William’s Town.
The few hundred locals still left in a distinctly separate housing development across the road from the tiny capital are reeling in shock.
Bisho, thanks to a space age skyline that set it apart from anywhere else in South Africa, brought in tourists by the busload in the bantustan days. Really nothing more than a large square around two intersections lined with designer government buildings, a post office, two banks and various retail stores, it is now an eerie and sparsely populated sight even at lunch hour.
The first road sign before driving under the main gateway into the brick-paved inner sanctum starkly declares “No Taxis”. And there are none to be seen. At night Bisho is completely deserted.
Since the advent of democracy, Bisho’s shops have closed down and office space even in the leaky, sky-hugging director general’s building, with its cracked walls and sagging corridors, is in dire need of renovation and repair.
Once-prosperous local businesspeople say rates and rentals have become steeper to compensate for losses, and the scaffolding of stalled construction work litters the once-bustling pavements.
Estate agents have also pulled out for King William’s Town, saying that with the departure of Pick ‘n Pay, no investor will be willing to put money into Bisho any longer. There is, they say, simply no attraction.
Of the government, only Premier Makhenkesi Stofile and his MECs stay on, several kilometres outside the capital in the well-tended ministerial complex built by Sebe.
But the “city” centre, across from the newly opened provincial public protector’s office, has one growth industry. Clustered in the corner of the large square are a host of micro-lending firms.
Says a King William’s Town estate agent involved in the Pick ‘n Pay deal: “Properties are moving here, but you can see there’s a lack of money.”
Leading businessman Jack Patel of the King William’s Town Chamber of Commerce, who two months ago pulled out of the Bisho mall after 10 years, says retailers no longer make money in the capital.
“In the old Ciskei, civil servants got their salary taxed differently from those in the Republic of South Africa, but these salaries have now dwindled. Most of the civil servants there now are from King Butterworth, Port Elizabeth and Umtata who live in Bisho during the week but spend their money when they return home at the weekend. Most also prefer to shop in King,” says Patel.
“A lot of the white folk among the civil servants, who were once the major spenders, have gone back to Cape Town and Pretoria, while the professionals all live in East London and shop there. The Bisho mall is now 90% empty and the capital is a ghost town at the end of the day.
“There are also too many moneylenders around and, coupled with last year’s high interest rates, we are living beyond our means like most South Africans. There was a Bisho Chamber of Commerce which tried to do things like fairs and stalls to attract investment, but there are just not enough people and East London is very close.”
Patel says Bisho’s economic salvation lies in the provincial government filling empty offices instead of hiring costly premises in downtown King William’s Town. But many businesses there have seen falling turnover as the area, a mugger’s paradise, is viewed as “unsafe” by locals, who prefer to go to East London.
King William’s Town also has no industry beyond a tannery and unemployment is rife. So desperate is the money shortage that the pay-out of Old Mutual shares cheques in the last two weeks had produced a “slight increase” in retail revenue, Patel says, adding: “It’s sad, but this seems to be the small-town story everywhere.”