Three weeks of violent clashes between street vendors and police have revealed divisions between trader organisations and the hypocrisy of the Informal Traders’ Management Board, which has been instrumental in calling for a boycott of proposed permit rates increases.
Pat Horn, coordinator of Street-net International, which campaigns for street traders’ rights, said the board had previously acted as a ”sweetheart union” for the municipality’s Business Support Unit (BSU) ”signing affidavits in support of [the municipality’s] statements in litigation against street vendors”.
She said that, in return, the board had been allowed free rein to control the eThekwini Municipality Informal Economy Forum, which was set up as a platform to discuss street vendor issues.
”Now the board is trying to force all street vendors, including those without permits, to support a boycott of rates increases and to burn their permits. They are sabotaging the very same unfair and exclusionary system they assisted the Business Support Unit to set up and maintain. The municipality and the BSU have only themselves to blame for this about-turn by their former sweetheart. The chickens have come home to roost for them,” said Horn.
The board was formed in 1995 and, since 2004, has exclusively represented the rights of vendors with permits in Durban. Horn said that with the municipality allowing the board discretionary powers to issue vending permits until September last year and turning a blind eye to certain board leaders charging illegally high rental for storage facilities provided by the municipality, ”turf protection” and self-aggrandisement had developed into the motivating force behind leaders’ decisions.
”When the rent increases proved very unpopular on the ground, the board leaders did an about-turn and denied any agreement with the municipality,” she said.
Complaints that the board was running the forum in an undemocratic manner and as an extension of the municipality were voiced last year by members of other street trader organisations: ”We’ve only attended the forum for two meetings this year and we noticed that there is a lot of rubber-stamping going on instead of discussion. The meetings have always been chaired by Phillip Sithole [acting head of the BSU] or Emmanuel Dlamini [president of the board] and decisions appear to have been taken already,” said Roshan Singh, from the Phoenix Plaza Street Traders’ Association.
A street trader who spoke to the Mail & Guardian on condition of anonymity, said the board was known to act in an intimidatory manner, and he accused the organisation of ”definitely” spreading misinformation to its members. ”The board had agreed upon the tariff increases [which include an increase from R10 to R40 a month for unsheltered sites] with the municipality, but people on the streets themselves seemed not to be informed of this and it reached a boiling point earlier this month.”
Sithole confirmed this: ”The violence erupted because they were not reporting back to their members.”
Gabi Bikombo, of the Siyagunda Association, said the process of issuing permits, which until September last year had been administered by the board, had a history of ”corruption and nepotism”.
”People were paying R500, R800, even R1 500 for a site. Site allocations are free; the only costs street traders should be paying is the monthly [R10] fee for their permits,” said Bikombo.
Siyagunda, the Phoenix Plaza Street Traders’ Association and The Eye Traders’ Association want the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into ”all facets of corruption around the issue of street trade permits”, the proper ”integration” of these bodies into the forum, that the position of the forum’s chair ”rotate between different stakeholder groupings” and the mandatory inclusion of a police representative at meetings to prevent police aggression.
Lawyers to take on ‘anti-hawker unit’
The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) will take the eThekwini municipality to the Durban High Court over allegations that it has created an unlawful unit dedicated to policing hawkers in the city.
Acting on behalf of three associations — Phoenix Plaza Street Traders, Siyagunda and Eye Traders — the LRC has served papers on the council and the KwaZulu-Natal minister for community safety, Bheki Cele, demanding the disbanding of the unit within 30 days and the return of all goods it has confiscated from street traders.
It alleges that a unit of 50 enforcement officers, set up in May 2005, has been masquerading as a municipal police force and unlawfully exercising police powers, including impounding goods.
As no law provides for such a unit, the LRC argues, the ”municipality has acted recklessly and irresponsibly in establishing it and allowing it to run amok”.
Durban City Manager Dr Michael Sutcliffe denied the existence of such a unit, saying that the metro police force had only ”authorised officers”. ”They have more limited powers. They don’t have powers of arrest. But they can police the by-laws and issue tickets [for by-law infringements].”
LRC attorney JP Purshotum said the centre aimed to move against the council within the next fortnight.
In November 2005 the LRC launched a high court action against the council, challenging the constitutionality of by-laws allowing the impounding of street traders’ goods. — Lynley Donnelly