Communities should have shares in malls

Locals should also be hired, Maile says

A government leader has called for pension funds that own malls to give communities where the centres are operating shares in the properties.

Lebogang Maile, the Gauteng MEC for economic development, made the oral submission on the last day of the Competition Commission Grocery Retail Market Inquiry hearings in Johannesburg on Friday.

“If you look at these malls, most of them are built using workers’ money. The stokvel industry is worth about R70billion, but that money is sitting with financial institutions.

“It is also true that these malls are not operating in the best interest of the locals there because they have all these big retailers who come there and unfortunately, in certain instances, they don’t even hire locals.

“They come with their own people from other areas.

“My take is that the model must change and if a mall is going to be built in the community, it must be clear what becomes the shareholding of the community and how do we raise that money,” said Maile.

His submission came after he was criticised by Soweto Business Access chairman and veteran entrepreneur Mphuthi Mphuthi on Thursday, who told the commission Maile had failed to protect township traders from the destruction caused by big retailers entering the market.

“Where we had a fallout was when they (Soweto Business Access) are saying you must give us the money and they will distribute the money to everybody else,” Maile said.

“And we said we don’t work like that. Government wants to work with individual entrepreneurs.”