A time for diligent management

ONE thing we all have to negotiate is the challenge to “grow up”. A primal question each of us must resolve is our use of space.

It’s human nature to book a spot for ourselves, and to claim our right to use it, whether it’s the cradle or grave. Initiative is the root of the survival instinct.

However, it has fostered as well as directed society.

A humorous tale from my childhood illustrates this effort to create a rightful place and an awareness of a need to legitimise it: There have to be some rules to stop bullying.

One day in the 1940s a couple of bored kids and I thought up an exciting plan. We would start a shop. It would be outside our home, on a spot on the pavement of Berea (now King Dinizulu) Road.

We dragged a big box to make a counter and put it outside the front gate. Then we fetched some Marie biscuits, a few onions, two bananas and a potato from the pantry and spread them out invitingly. We wrote price tags – two biscuits a penny, one banana a tickey, etc.

Having set up shop so invitingly, we were disappointed that pedestrians walked right past. Then we had an idea. Out with the skipping rope. We stretched it waist-high across the sidewalk, one child holding each end. People would be allowed past only once they had made a purchase!

A few indulgent grown-ups complied. But then stirrings about fair play emerged… Jiminy Cricket speaking (it was the days of Disney’s Pinocchio): Was doing this actually okay?

Across the road was a traffic cop on duty (those were the days). Ever resourceful and with the trust of the young, I ran over and said: “We are starting a shop. Is it okay?”

Also indulgent, he nodded his “permission” with a chuckle.

Somehow we had realised that regulation is one of the games of life. We continued, assured we now “had a licence” to trade.

Fast forward to 2017, Dr Pixley ka Seme Street. Same effort by would-be small business entrepreneurs, but by now it’s no longer a game. I am told that people put out tables and mark the paving underneath to a measured size.

Blue cars ride by and collect “rent” for “the municipality”! If they do not pay, their goods are all confiscated! By whom? One thing seems likely, that without diligent management the opportunities for bribery and corruption will flourish out there on Main Street.

Does this situation confirm the call for regulation of small businesses by the adviser to the Minister of Small Business Development? Or will registration cause demotivation, loss of business initiative and a riot? What about the big shop- keepers whose window displays are obscured by the trading goings-on? Is there no room at the market? Reality-based discussion in a spirit of compromise is still needed. DESI HALSE

Durban