Municipalities accused of ignoring tensions between foreign-owned and local businesses

Municipalities must investigate and take action on allegations that foreign nationals are preventing South Africans from starting businesses in certain areas.

This is the view of Deputy Minister of Small Business Development Jane Sithole, who said her office had received calls from street vendors in Acornhoek, Bushbuckridge complaining about Pakistani nationals evicting them from their shops. 

Last week in Carletonville, spaza shop owners believed to be Pakistani nationals were accused of assaulting a woman and her husband for refusing to obey their order not to open a shop selling food near their stores.

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In a social media video that went viral, a man believed to be a leader of Pakistani tuckshop owners conceded that the fight between his group and the family erupted after they continued with their plans of opening a store near his spaza shop. 

In an interview with The Citizen on Friday, Sithole urged municipalities, traditional leaders and other stakeholders not to ignore complaints from hawkers and spaza shop owners. 

She said there was a tendency for authorities not to attend to residents’ complaints until it’s too late.  

“For now, I can’t say who is wrong or right, but what I know is that people are complaining about this. We all know that chasing away street vendors is not the foreign nationals’ job as only the municipality can do that.

“Hence I say the Bushbuckridge municipality and the other municipalities must take these complaints seriously and deal with them before the situation gets out of hand.”

She said her department is investigating the matter raised by the hawkers in Bushbuckridge.

“We, as the leaders, collectively have a duty of making sure that confrontations between locals and foreign-owned businesses are averted. Most of the street vendors who contacted my office said they tried in vain to report the matter to the municipalities, traditional leaders and councillors.” 

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Sithole also urged the municipalities to erect stalls for hawkers to help them run their businesses, as some of them are breadwinners in their families. 

“If you run a shop to make a living, please do not evict other people who are also trying to make a living.” 

Bushbuckridge municipality spokesperson Fhumulani Thovhakale was contacted regarding the Bushbuckridge matter, but she did not respond to the questions sent to her.