SA metros issued over 32 000 street trading permits in five years, but Joburg remains silent

Informal Traders along De Villiers street in Johannesburg, 6 July 2022. Picture: Nigel Sibanda Informal traders account for more than half of business activity in eThekwini’s CBD, while Cape Town says it simply cannot count. Here is what South Africa’s biggest cities revealed about who is really running their streets.

South Africa’s major metropolitan municipalities issued more than 32 000 street trading permits and informal trading contracts over the past five years, according to responses obtained by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) following a parliamentary question tabled by Mokgaetji Mafagane of the MK Party in the National Assembly. The question, directed at Cogta Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa, asked each of the country’s five largest metros – Tshwane, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Ekurhuleni and eThekwini – to account for how many street trading permits had been issued and what share of central business district activity was made up of informal versus formal trade. What emerged was a fragmented picture of how South Africa governs its streets, with each city operating according to its own systems, its own definitions, and in Johannesburg’s case, offering no answer at all.

The department was quick to establish that this is not its data to hold. According to Hlabisa, street trading permits, trading bay allocations and informal trading regulations fall squarely within the authority of individual municipalities, governed through the Municipal Systems Act and each city’s own bylaws. As a result, no centralised national database of informal trading permits exists.

[paywall]

The department confirmed this in its reply, stating that the information “is maintained by the respective metropolitan municipalities in accordance with their bylaws.” It further noted that the decentralisation of informal trading governance is consistent with how the function has been designed, spatially regulated through municipal bylaws and designated trading areas. Despite having no obligation to compile this information, the department said it “requested this information from the relevant municipalities”.

[/paywall]