Cape Town - The City of Cape Town has approved an informal trading permit fee relief, after it was inundated with requests for the relief by the informal trading sector in the past number of months since the implementation of the Covid-19 pandemic regulations.
Informal traders across the city have been raising concerns about their alleged inability to pay their permit fees due to the negative impact of the lockdowns and subsequent restrictions. Some had marched to the City over the fee relief.
Urban Management Mayco member, Grant Twigg, said that as a responsive and caring City, “giving effect to the mayor’s seven electoral pledges, it had heard the plight of the informal trader sector”.
Twigg said the mayco approved an informal trading permit fee relief to active informal traders for the period January 1, 2022 to June 30, 2022, where no informal trading tariffs would be payable to the City.
He said they also approved that all informal trading permit fees paid in advance be credited into informal traders’ trading accounts.
He said this was subject to final approval at the council meeting on Wednesday next week.
"The current Covid-19 pandemic and its restrictions have disproportionately harmed the informal trading sector in our country, and globally," Twigg said.
SA Informal Traders’ Alliance president, Rosheda Muller said it would be prudent for newly elected officials to remember that informal traders were the backbone of the economy, employing and sustaining the lives of millions of people.
Muller said that despite a very clear and unambiguous directive from the highest office in the country, informal traders in municipalities across the country continued to be harassed and targeted by law enforcement daily, and often had their goods confiscated.
“Moreover, as the economy continues to buckle under the pressures of the pandemic, and unemployment figures continue to rise, more and more people will turn to informal trade as a way to feed themselves and their families,” Muller said.
He said it was therefore essential that all of the government, from the highest office, right down to municipal and ward officials, as well as those in law enforcement, ensured that those in the second economy were protected.
sisonke.mlamla@inl.co.za