Hawkers struggle after Soweto mall looted, vandalised
A sea of informal traders have set up their wares on the pavement outside Jabulani Mall in Soweto. Men, women and even children, who sell anything from plastic basins to second-hand clothes and vegetables, call out to potential customers as they pass by.
But business has been slow over the past year and many can pinpoint the start of the downturn to the looting and vandalism that rocked Kwazulunatal and parts of Gauteng last July. Jabulani Mall was one of the sites of the violence. A year later, some of the damaged stores have still not recovered from the carnage.
In its pre-close update before releasing its results for the six months ended December 2021, the mall’s owner, Resilient Reit, said because of the looting, retail sales fell 40.1% compared with roughly the same period in 2020, which was itself affected by lockdowns relating to the Covid-19 pandemic. Resilient Reit said damages to the mall during the unrest was R3.6-million.
The harm has filtered down to the informal traders.
“After the unrest last year when big stores like Shoprite closed, that is when we also suffered because people were not coming to the mall,” said informal trader Pretty Dube.
“Before Covid-19 business was good. We also got customers who took the train to work at Inhlazane train station but now people are out of work and are not walking the route. But even besides that, the trains were not running,” she said.
The train from Naledi passes through Inhlazane, Dube, Phefeni, Langlaagte and Mayfair on its way to Park Station in central Johannesburg. Two years of Covid-19 lockdowns, during which the rail network was vandalised, led to the suspension of services. It was only in January that trains resumed running to Park Station.
At the beginning of the pandemic workers at the mall had their hours reduced to half shifts, Dube noted. After the July 2021 unrest, businesses were closed for a while or permanently, and the hawkers saw some of those mall employees setting up next to them on the pavement. “There are no jobs in South Africa,” she said.
Shoprite says the unrest in Kwazulu-natal and Gauteng affected 135 of its supermarkets and 54 liquor shops, which were either looted or were damaged by fire.
In the aftermath of the unrest, some hawkers still came in every morning and set up their wares in the hope of finding buyers, but the area was “a ghost town”.
“I had to wake up and come in every morning even though some days I would walk away with nothing. R5 a day is better than nothing. What will my children eat?” said Dube, who lives in White City in Jabavu with her two children aged six and 13.
She is worried about the simmering anger over unemployment and the rising cost of living.
“We are worried about another unrest,” said Dube after a discussion about the price of cooking oil, which has hit R100 for a two-litre bottle. “People are hungry,” she added.
According to unemployment data for the third quarter of 2021, Gauteng shed 200 000 jobs and Kwazulunatal 123000 after the unrest. This year has seen the price of fuel and other items rise. The cost of an average basket of goods increased to a five-year high in May.
With few prospects of employment, the number of traders outside the Jabulani Mall has grown to about 50.
“Most of these traders joined us after the pandemic and the unrest. When I was here in 2019 there were not more than 10 traders scattered about but now we are all competing with each other and we are competing with Jabulani Mall,” Dube said.
Monique Marungwane has been a hawker at the mall for three months. She lost her job as a domestic worker in Randburg when her employer got into financial difficulties.
“The competition is tough here because as you can see I am not the only one selling bananas, naartjies and avocados,” Marungwane said. “But I don’t have an option. I want to go back to working in the kitchens. There is no money here.
“I spend R120 to pay for the van to take me to the market to buy produce for the week but I don’t even make R120 a day. Today is a good day because I’ve made R50 since 6am,” she said. It was 4pm.
A customer interrupted to purchase one naartjie for R3. “Even this,” said Marungwane, “will contribute to tonight’s dinner.”
Marungwane is the sole provider for her children, one an unemployed 25-year-old daughter who lives in Mozambique, and a 12-year-old son who lives with her in Jabulani.
The plight of the hawkers illustrates how the so-called township economy has struggled to get back on its feet after the Covid-19 pandemic and last year’s riots.
“There were some big stores that were damaged, some small businesses that were affected and there were some shopping malls that were damaged and for some time, in fact for the past few quarters, things have not been looking good for the bruised township economy,” said Mongezi Mtati, a brand strategist at Rogerwilco, a digital marketing agency that produced the 2022 South Africa Township CX Report.
“In our observation, there has been a difference pre and post the unrest and that difference is a consciousness to support local township businesses, but the consumer is under pressure and in turn so are the township businesses and entrepreneurs.”
M&G.