Rustenburg - A group of hawkers staged a sit-in at the office of the director of local economic development in the Rustenburg municipality on Thursday.
“We slept here last night [Wednesday] we did not go home. We are going to occupy this office even if it means we spend Christmas Day here,” said Jane Mpolokeng, spokesperson of the group.
She said 35 women occupied the office on Tuesday afternoon, demanding the municipality allocate them stalls to trade, and to release tables, chairs, tents and pots the municipality had confiscated during a raid in October.
“We have not been trading since October 15, our children are dying of hunger. All we want is for the municipality to release our belongings and allocate stalls for us.” She said they were not prepared to attend any meeting with the municipality because previous meetings had not achieved anything.
“We had enough meetings. There is no progress in this matter,” she said. “All we want is our belongings back and space to trade.”
Acting mayor of Rustenburg Victoria Makhaula said the group that occupied the office had not registered as hawkers, when hawkers were asked to register members who working for other hawkers.
“Now they wanted to be independent and trade as hawkers. We give all hawkers an opportunity to register and this group did not believe us, now they see the benefit [hawkers reap], they too want to benefit.”
About 300 unhappy hawkers marched to the municipality on November 2, demanding that the municipality return their goods confiscated on October 15. They also demanded that the municipality must reserve parking space for their suppliers.
They claimed suppliers vehicle were being towed away every time they delivered goods. In a memorandum, the hawkers demanded equal stall space for all hawkers, claiming that some stalls were bigger than others.
“After they handed over the memorandum, we realised that they were not in the database. We called them for a meeting last week and they walked out of that meeting. We did not know that they slept here last night. We were at a special council meeting on Wednesday,” said Makhaula.
She said the group did not want to meet with the Hawkers Forum to address their problems. Makhaula said there were 1 200 hawkers trading in the municipality, and that there was no more space available for street trading.
After the group refused to meet with the director of economic development, Jacky Kole, and the Hawkers Forum, the group went to a closed door meeting with municipal manager Bheki Khenisa.
AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY