Call for peace between spaza shop owners

8 Tension rises in Wallacedene as CPF, police monitor turf wars

LOCAL and foreign national spaza shop owners have been urged to find amicable solutions to doing business.

The SA Spaza Shop Co-operative (Sassco) made the plea in the light of fresh turf clashes between owners.

The organisation’s chairperson, Bongani Vakele, raised concerns after conflict in Kraaifontein forced the police to intervene and close two shops owned by foreign nationals in Phase 1, Wallacedene last Friday.

The Community Policing Forum (CPF) and the police are monitoring the situation to avoid xenophobic attacks.

Vakele, who has tried to prevent such clashes said the organisation would intervene if called upon.

The City of Cape Town, the police and the Kraaifontein CPF will meet next week to defuse the situation. The CPF’s chairperson, Mawethu Sila, said xenophobic violence in 2008 and 2010 had prompted them to “regulate” the spaza shops together with the police.

Residents and shop owners had agreed to a limit of two shops per block until recently.

Sila said “we want to control xenophobia and avoid what happened in 2008 and 2010. Unfortunately, locals still complain that foreign nationals take over the spaza shop market”.

He said foreign nationals’ spaza shops had a curfew – a common practice across the city – because they were often robbed.

Joseph Kandunu, a Malawian who works in one of the shops that were closed last week, said both shops had been shut by the police last month. A shop was closed by the police earlier in May for similar reasons.

In last week’s incident, a shopkeeper and her children were arrested. Despite his shop’s close proximity to its competition Kandunu said his business had been doing well. He said there were at least five shops in his street.

President of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry Janine Myburgh said the transport problem in the city and other major cities made it convenient to have shops near to where people lived. She said it seemed the Kraaifontein police handled the situation on an ad hoc basis.

However, she said the police were certainly not in a position to make decisions on closing hours.

“They do not have the knowledge and they are exposing themselves to allegations of bias or favouritism, something that should be avoided.”

“What is needed is an in-depth study of the problem to develop guidelines for the future development of spaza shops and clear policy which is the same for all shop owners.”

She suggested research be done to tackle the issue.

Zoe Nkongolo, director at human rights organisation Africa Unite, said it was illegal for the police to regulate the hours of foreign nationals’ spaza shops.

He said spaza shops weren’t oversaturated in the province.

“Our experiences in dealing with locals and foreign nationals who own spaza shops, have shown that most of the issues that relate to xenophobia are due to competition for resources,” Nkongolo said.

Africa Unite initiated a skills sharing programme, where foreign nationals spend time with young people in townships in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

“In this programme they are sharing their skills and the success stories of how they managed to start their own businesses from very little resources and without any support.”