Court victory for traders

Financial harm devastating for families

SUFFERING the financial hardship and harm of the stringent lockdown regulations, informal traders at the Grand Parade have secured a legal victory allowing them to sell essential goods again.

The traders, under the bodies of Grand Parade Traders Association and three others, lodged a court application against the City of Cape Town, and the ministers of co-operative governance, small business development and police, challenging the non-issuing of permits to traders under the level 4 lockdown regulations.

The matter was set to be heard in the Western Cape High Court yesterday.

According to papers filed by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), the legal representatives of the informal traders, the City had regarded the activity at Grand Parade as a “flea market” and not informal trading, as argued by the legal body.

A draft order issued by the court said the parties reached an agreement that the operation of informal trading business by the associations on the Grand Parade did not constitute a flea market in terms of Disaster Management Act Regulation 24(2)(b).

The LRC said the traders could now go back to the Grand Parade as early as “today or next week”.

“Should they encounter any difficulties in trading, we maintain the option of approaching the court for a declaratory and an interdict,” the LRC said.

In the court application, the small business owners argued that the decision to preclude them from trading was unconstitutional and invalid; and they also sought to interdict and restrain the respondents from harassing, intimidating or arresting any informal trader on the Grand Parade.

An affidavit filed by one of the traders sketched the financial harm her family suffered as a result of not being able to trade.

Rosheda Muller, the chairperson of the Grand Parade United Traders, said she had traded on the Grand Parade for more than 20 years and through the income received she and her husband were able to care for their family, meet household needs and provide for their two sons, one of whom was differently abled.

Muller said the R350 from the Covid-19 unemployment relief fund did not cover the bare minimum required by many families for survival as the food poverty line in South Africa, for daily caloric intake, was R561 per person, per month.

“Currently, a basket of essentials, for a household of four, is estimated at R3 400 per month. Food prices have increased,” Muller said.

In the affidavit she also said the association gave the City assurance that, if allowed to trade, the informal traders would adhere to all the strict health protocols and ensure physical distancing and not operate at full capacity.

Operations, Muller added, would also be carried out on a rotational basis. Muller said she was concerned that the City was acting unfairly and discriminatingly by allowing the Oranjezicht Farmers Market in Granger Bay Boulevard at the V&A Waterfront to operate, but not informal traders on the Grand Parade.

Although she said she was told that the Oranjezicht Farmers Market was on private property and was therefore, allowed to trade, she found it puzzling that informal traders on public-owned land such as the Grand Parade were treated differently from those on private land, considering that the Regulations and the Disaster Management Act applied equally to all informal traders.