Hawkers come to work to find their premises in pound

STREET vendors are furious with the municipality for impounding the shipping containers and caravans they run their food businesses from.

On Sunday, the King Sabata Dalindyebo (KSD) municipality removed containers from the pavements of Mthatha’s Leeds road and Craister street. A container owner in Leeds Road told the Dispatch that as many as eight had been removed.

Vendor Pakama Gomo said: “It’s like they [KSD] are stealing them because they come at night when we have already left.

“We depend on these containers to put food on the table. Some of us are also contributing to job creation.”

Gomo has been selling meals from her container since last year and employs three people.

“If they shut us down by removing the containers, then it means those people won’t have jobs. Some of us employ up to 12 people and if their business is no more, it means 12 people will be unemployed.”

The money she made paid for her child’s education, she added.

“I have a child who has just entered university and has to register for this year’s academic year.”

KSD apparently issued notices on Friday that the containers would be removed.

Gomo accused municipal bosses of jumping the gun, saying there was an ongoing case opened by hawkers a few years ago when the municipality tried to remove them.

The case is set to be heard in the Mthatha High Court on March 9.

Vendor Monica Mpande said she lived in constant fear that one day she would come to town to find her container gone.

She has also been selling meals for a number of years, providing for her children in university and paying for transport for her younger children to get to school. “If they remove us from here, then they must find us an alternative place,” she added.

In 2015, municipal authorities vowed to impound the “illegal” containers “choking” up the city’s pavements and last year the new KSD mayor, Dumani Zozo, promised in his inauguration speech to clean up Mthatha’s “filthy” streets.

African Hawkers president Fundile Jali has previously been quoted in the Dispatch calling upon KSD to build markets for hawkers.

“If the government doesn’t want [shipping] containers in those streets, then it must build us a place to trade from.”

KSD municipal spokesman Sonwabo Mampoza confirmed the removal of some containers when contacted for comment yesterday but was unable to provide further information by deadline, saying he was in a meeting. “I will respond to you after my meeting,” he said. —