In early October last year, a large contingent of Joburg’s metro cops descended on the Dunusa Street Market, to clear hundreds of street vendors and hawkers that were trading illegally at the open-air second-hand clothing market.

This operation, which was backed by the police and immigration officers, was part of Joburg’s major cleanup campaign ahead of the city hosting the G20 summit last November.

The closure of Dunusa, situated in the CBD on De Villiers Street between Park Station and Noord Taxi Rank, was celebrated by many residents who had complained for years about unregulated street trading turning the inner city into a slum.

But the demise of the popular thrift market, which reportedly displaced more than 800 street traders, was not celebrated by everyone. It’s die-hard supporters, mostly bargain-hunting clothing shoppers, mourned its closure. The Joburg Metro Municipality never allowed Dunusa traders to return and instead planted trees where their stalls used to line up De Villiers Street.

The municipality has kept up the crackdown on illegal street trading in the CBD. Last month, it demolished illegally-built shacks, stalls, and subdivided shops that had spilled out onto sidewalks along Small Street, a pedestrianised shopping thoroughfare stretching from Noord Taxi Rank to Carlton Centre.

In other parts of Gauteng province like Evaton and Tembisa townships, residents have taken it upon themselves to remove street vendors and hawkers who are violating municipal bylaws and trading without permits.

Street trading is common in South Africa because it generates income for unemployed people. It has low barriers to entry and does not quire too much startup capital. This is why food vendors, fresh fruit and vegetable hawkers, dressmakers, second-hand clothing merchants, tailors, shoemakers, hairdressers, barbers, and handmade craft traders have flocked to inner cities to sell their wares.

They sell their goods on roadsides from make-shift stalls, caravans, and shipping containers usually placed along transport hubs like taxi ranks, bus ranks, and train stations.

But the informality associated with street trading has overwhelmed many municipalities and shocked South Africans who traditionally dined or shopped from retail malls and high streets. Fed-up residents are putting pressure on their municipalities to regulate street trading concentrated in unsuitable locations not supported by infrastructure.

Overcrowded pavements, mountains of uncollected waste, open defecation and urination in alleys, parks, and on sidewalks are a common eyesore in many towns and cities.

Unregulated street trading is also intertwined with the rapid migration from SA’s rural hinterland and neighbouring countries into major cities like Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban.

The floodgates opened after the end of apartheid 1994. This influx into urban centres was enabled by the abolishment of apartheid-era laws like the Influx Control Act in 1986 and Group Areas Act in 1991. These laws restricted the movement of black people in urban areas and prevented them from owning property or opening businesses in CBDs.

Today, the informal economy including street vending and businesses trading from fixed premises like spaza shops, hardware stores, and hair salons is dominated by foreign nationals, both documented and undocumented.

This has caused an uproar from anti-illegal immigration group March and March and business chamber Nafcoc Retail Chamber (Nafret). These organisations are demanding that government must implement tighter border and immigration controls. They also want government to restrict the participation of foreigners in the informal sector.

Foreign immigrants made up 3,9% of SA’s population in 2022, up from 2,1% in 1996, according to a press statement published by Stats SA in February last year. This means that there are currently 2,4 million foreign immigrants living in SA, with women making up just over one million of the total population of foreign nationals.

The Stats SA statement also revealed that Gauteng was the top destination for foreign immigrants, followed by the Western Cape as the second most preferred location.

In response to calls for stricter informal sector regulation, the government has initiated legislative reforms to introduce a new business licensing legislation that will replace the 35-year old Business Act.

Last month, the Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) published a third version of the Business Licensing Bill, which aims to modernise SA’s business registration processes and slash costs associated with licensing informal businesses.

The proposed legislation also seeks to strictly regulate the informal businesses and foreign participation in the informal economy. Foreign applicants with business visas are required to invest R5 million before they can operate businesses in SA while refugees and asylum seekers are exempted from putting down the R5 million capital investment.

However, the Bill has empowered licensing authorities including municipalities to verify immigration statuses of foreign investors, refugees, and asylum seekers with Home Affairs before granting business licenses.

The insistence on immigration verification follows allegations made by anti-illegal immigration activists that some foreign nationals including refugees and asylum seekers are running businesses in SA using fake documents. Asylum seeker permits are valid for six months and refugee permits are valid for four years. Both permits are renewable.

The Bill has also zoomed in on street trading, where you also find a huge participation of undocumented foreigners. Clause 31 of the Bill empowers municipalities to enact bylaws that restrict or prohibit informal trading near parks, roadside verges, government buildings, churches, and national or provincial heritage sites. A roadside verge is a strip of land that is nestled between the edge of a road and an adjacent property boundary and sidewalk.

Clause 31 stipulates procedural steps that municipalities must take before regulating street trading. Municipalities are required to issue public notices and to conduct public consultations before passing bylaws that restrict or prohibit street trading. They are also required to publish the notices in local newspapers, setting out reasons for passing bylaws.

It remains to be seen, if the proposed Bill will embolden municipalities to enforce bylaws that make their cities and towns clean and orderly. I guess we will find out after it has been passed in Parliament.

After this year’s local government elections, municipalities won’t have any excuses for failing to crack the whip against illegal street trading.

After all, South Africans are demanding cleaner and safer towns and cities. They are no longer prepared to settle for less.

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