Shop owners cash in on migrant exodus

Two weeks after immigrant-owned shops closed in Ratanda, south of Heidelberg, residents have accused local shop owners of hiking prices for bread and airtime.

Shops belonging to people from Somalia, Bangladesh, China and Pakistan closed after they were looted and vandalised by residents protesting over poor services from the Lesedi Municipality.

Now, community members are threatening to boycott local shop owners who, they say, are hiking prices and taking advantage of the absence of competition from immigrant shop owners.

They say bread is being sold for as much as R25 a loaf and airtime has been marked up by R5.

Some residents, however, still don’t want the immigrants to return. “Even if bread sells for R25, l don’t mind buying it as long as we are supporting our brothers and sisters. Why support foreigners who do not belong in our country?” said Ntokozo Mokoena. “They should just go back to their countries peacefully.”

Nomsa Msiza, who works in a shop in Ratanda, welcomed the shutting of foreigner-owned businesses.

“Business was good during the past two weeks. Foreign shop owners take all our customers away. If the shops are reopened, it’s back to square one,” she said.

Another person, who only gave her surname, Mngomezulu, said “foreign shop owners should go away and make way for local businesses to thrive”.

“The problem is those people who host foreign nationals make lots of money and always fight for them to come back.” – Republished from GroundUp. Read the original article on Groundup.org.za