Hundreds of Early Morning Market informal traders and their employees have vowed to resist the city's plan to remove them from the market, amid allegations that city officials have tried to bribe traders to make way for development.
During a peaceful demonstration on Tuesday, traders marched in small groups to the city hall in protest against the proposed new R400-million shopping mall development, saying it would literally starve the poor.
Streetnet International co-ordinator Pat Horn addressed the rally of traders and sympathisers who gathered at the top of Dr Pixley kaSeme (West) Street to march to the city hall to hand a memorandum of demands to deputy mayor Logie Naidoo.
However, city police stopped the march at the last minute, saying the traders' application o stage the march had been declined.
Horn said city officials had apparently walked around the market on Monday offering vendors bribes of R1 000 and television sets if they would accept the development in an attempt to prevent the march.
The allegation has been rejected by city leaders, who said anyone with evidence should present it to city manager Michael Sutcliffe. But this did not stop the traders who gathered with banners reading "Save the market, we feed the poor", "This 2010 mall will starve us", "Come hail, come sun, come May, our market will stay", and, on a more personal level, "Down with Mike Sutcliffe and Porky Naidoo".
About 460 000 commuters travel through Warwick Junction daily, generating revenue of R1 billion annually upon which the livelihood of an estimated 7 000 to 10 000 traders depends. Traders have been given notice by the city to vacate the market premises by Sunday.
The proposed development has received wide criticism from NGOs, the KZN Institute of Architects and academics who claim the municipality has not followed legal and public processes in tendering and granting a 50-year lease to the developer Warwick Mall Consortium. Informal traders fear they will be permanently removed from the area and that the mall will direct commuters away from stalls into the mall.
"Let us take notice of tactics other countries have used, like long sit-ins, which would make it extremely difficult for the municipality to evict you under South African law if you refuse to move," Horn said.
Roothren Moodley, Warwick Precinct Plan Stakeholders Forum chairman, said: "The Early Morning Market is here to stay for another 100 years, we must tell them clearly."
Protesters walked in small groups to the city hall where representatives, including the chairman of the Early Morning Market Traders' Association, Harry Ramlall, met dep-uty city manager Derek Naidoo, deputy mayor Logie Naidoo and city councillors.
After the three-and-a-half hour meeting, Ramlall said traders had achieved their goal by stalling the removal process.
Independent urban planning consultant Dr Susanna Godehart said that as far as she understood, the development was "completely illegal at this stage" as an environmental impact assessment to build on the market site had not been done.