‘No pay back the money’ for informal traders
ALEXANDRA – Mali has been negotiating with her counterparts at Pan for many years to get them on board with no success.
A 72-year-old Alex granny, who scrapes living hawking in the notorious streets of Johannesburg’s central business district, is one of the numerous beneficiaries of an informal sector business relief fund project.
The relief fund of R25 000 was provided by the South African Informal Traders Alliance (Saita), in a joint ‘Build Back Better’ campaign with the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC).
The fund is designed to help resuscitate the informal sector whose members were victims of the July looting and unrest, which saw many businesses in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces destroyed in the process.
Lulama Mali of G.Sisozi, a sole proprietor NPC that has been trading for about seven years though Mali herself has been in the streets of the CBD since her early 40s when she was retrenched – selling scarves, hats, beads, amakip-kip and in winter, trades in winter clothes such as beanies, jackets, jerseys and other warm items.
In an exclusive interview with Alex News, Mali, who hails from the Far East Bank section of Alexandra in an area called The Last Gate, said she has already used half of the R25 000 grant to settle debts that she incurred with the loan sharks when she resumed trading soon after the riots.
“The other half will be paid as soon as we can account for the usage of the first half,” said Mali, who is the chairperson of the NPC Johannesburg Informal Traders Platform (JITP), which represents traders in the CBD, Park Station, Yeoville market, Bree Street Taxi Rank market, China Mall, Lenasia, Diepsloot and Jeppestown.
Mali, who was born in East London and whose husband passed on six years ago, is also the chairperson of Gauteng Informal Traders Organisation (Gaito), which represents traders and their interests in the entire province. She has four grown-up kids of her own with six grandchildren.
She said the funding was a grant, which means ‘we don’t have to pay back the money, but we will be mentored and workshopped for various skills, including financial management and marketing’.
“As an organisation, we’re so grateful for the funding which will go a long way toward re-establishing our informal businesses and getting us back on the streets to contribute to the resuscitation and growth of the country’s economy.”
Mali said she has been negotiating with her counterparts at Pan Africa Square in Alexandra for many years, but she has not been successful in recruiting them to join the Johannesburg structure that she heads.
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