Hawkers hail opening of offices
Tshwane Barekisi Forum held a celebration for hawkers at their newly-built offices.
|||Pretoria - Tshwane Barekisi Forum held a celebration for hawkers at their newly-built offices on the corner of Boom and Thabo Sehume streets on Wednesday to mark a new chapter after years of harassment at the hands of metro police.
During the occasion, the informal traders recalled sad memories of slain street seller Foster Rivombo, who was allegedly gunned down in Bosman Street by a metro cop in January last year.
About 300 traders from Atteridgeville, Centurion, Maraba-stad, Bosman, Lotus Gardens and Pretoria West said the occasion was a turning-point in the operation of the informal traders’ sector.
Traders had a braai and were entertained by a DJ who played music and a group of women who did traditional Tsonga dances.
Tshwane Barekisi Forum chairman Shoes Maloka thanked mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa in absentia for the efforts he made in improving the relationship between informal traders and the metro cops.
He attributed the success of formalising their sector to Ramokgopa, saying he had made selfless efforts to help them. He said the city intended to launch a bursary scheme for their children in October.
Maloka said there were plans in the pipeline to start a co-operative bank for traders. It is envisaged that the bank would enable traders to invest money and borrow from it.
The other achievement that called for celebration was the good relationship Barekisi has with other trader organisations like the Tshwane Informal Traders Forum, Tshwane Micro Entrepreneurs and the Tshwane Informal Traders Council.
Barekisi secretary Mary Ngema said: “The day means a lot because we finally found peace as informal traders. We used to be harassed by the metro police and previous municipal leaders.”
Ngema said Rivombo refused to hand over his stock to the metro police who had launched a raid to confiscate stock from traders. He was shot and killed for holding on to the items, she said.
SA Informal Traders Forum chairman Sam Khasibe said informal traders were contributing to the country’s GDP. He asked the government to host a small business indaba for traders to air their grievances.
pula.moatshe@inl.co.za
Pretoria News