Cape Town - Informal traders are calling for urgent intervention from the City after they were stranded outside the storage facilities at Grand Central in the CBD with trollies full of goods.
Cape Peninsula Informal Traders Forum (CPITF) chairperson, Rosheda Muller, said as “valuable players in the local economy”, they had been “begging” for assistance with storage for years – but to no avail.
But the City’s mayco member for economic growth, James Vos, said while the City valued the informal sector and its contribution to the Cape Town economy, storage was not their responsibility.
“The City is not responsible for storing goods for businesses. We fully understand the difficulties traders are currently experiencing when it comes to storing their goods overnight. The City only provides trading and storage space where feasible.”
Traders arrived at the storage facilities on Friday evening and said they were chased away.
The facilities, Muller said, belonged to Grand Central and were leased to a company called Mango, that charged the traders.
“That mall said they have no space any more and are no longer going to accept us. They gave us a notice on the 12th (May) but many people paid for their R600 for a month so that was less than two weeks. We cannot use two weeks to find storage. It’s a difficult thing. We are stressed out, this morning everyone is asking how we are going to do for the day and the rest of the week. This is our bread and butter,” trader Leo Aguguo said.
Muller said since traders received the notice they had tried to get assistance from building management and the City. “Women slept with their trollies in the bitter cold and it’s a huge amount they pay.”
Muller said a City official agreed they could temporarily keep their goods at the Parade, but had to pay for their own security, which was not sustainable. On Tuesday they were informed they needed to make another plan immediately.
“We have asked the City about storage on the Parade many times and they keep saying, no, it’s a heritage site, but they keep building buildings there,” said Muller.
Vos replied: “The Grand Parade is a provincial heritage site and is subject to an approved Heritage impact assessment. All structures will need to go through a heritage approval process in terms of
Both Mango and Grand Central did not respond to requests for comment by deadline on Tuesday.
Cape Times