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News - Date: 21 August 2009
A meeting called to brief hawkers about their status in Thohoyandou nearly turned nasty when municipal officials failed to arrive at the local hall.
It is alleged that municipal officials had agreed with the leadership of the hawkers to meet the general membership of the hawkers to brief them about their status in the CBD. The meeting was scheduled for 08:45 on Tuesday at the Thohoyandou Town Hall.
The whole town was again deserted for the most part of the day, with no business activity taking place. Having waited in vain for the officials to arrive, hawkers lost patience and a group of them decided to go to the municipal offices.
After getting no audience from the officials, the hawkers decided to go back to the CBD, singing freedom songs. As history will always repeat itself, some members of the hawking community were incensed by the action of the municipality and thus went on the rampage again, destroying property and throwing litter in most of the streets.
Police had to intervene to restore order and to avoid a recurrence of last week’s events.
In the fracas, several businesses were damaged and three people were arrested.
Mr Wilber Mudau, a committee member representing the hawkers, said the municipality was taking them for a ride. “They call our members and never come to address them. We are made to look like we were bought by the municipality and we are selling our people. How do they expect people to have trust in us when we call them and the meeting does not take place?”
Mudau said they had reached an understanding with the municipality that they would together work towards an amicable solution that would benefit the municipality and the hawkers.
“They are making a somersault and reneging on their promise to work with us and are now taking unilateral decisions on the fate of the hawkers,” he said.
He said they were called to the municipality as a committee and were shown a document de-tailing how hawkers should work.
“We told them to their faces that we cannot take that back to our members as it was not to our members’ advantage. Our members would suffer as many of them would not have places to trade,” he said.
He said the municipality was showing its true colours of dictating to the people.
“There is no democracy in this municipality. They do as they wish about our fate and we will not fold our arms and see ourselves starving to early graves,” he said.
Mudau said if the municipality continued the way it was doing, “we would be left with no option but to pull out of the negotiations and work the way we used to do,” he said.
He is worried that, since last week, business has been greatly affected in town and that members are now feeling the heat, as they do not have anything to take home.
“We need a speedy resolve of this matter and the municipality should be sincere in all they tell us,” he said.
Community Services Manager at Thulamela Mr Mbulungeni Madi said the municipality did not call the meeting. “We heard about the meeting but did not have the details. Our doors are always open for negotiations. We are not here to deprive hawkers of their livelihood, but this should be done in an orderly fashion,” he said.
Madi said he was surprised to see the hawkers at the municipality entrance. “We could not address them as some of them were unruly,” he said. He appealed to the leadership of the hawkers to consult with members and come to them with their proposals.
Only last week the whole town was in chaos when an eviction action to rid Thohoyandou town of alleged illegal vendors tuned nasty when enraged vendors went berserk, wreaking havoc and leaving tons of garbage in their wake. The vendors were incensed when Thulamela municipal officials allegedly confiscated their stalls and stock.
Limpopo police spokesperson Capt Mashudu Malelo said incidents of violence were reported and that three people were arrested and would be charged with public violence and malicious damage to property. He said the situation was back to normal but police were still patrolling the town.
At the time of going to press, different stakeholders were locked in a meeting at the municipality’s boardroom to iron out outstanding challenges regarding hawking in the city centre.
Elmon Tshikhudo started off as a photographer. He developed an interest in writing and started submitting articles to local as well as national publications. He became part of the Limpopo Mirror family in 2005 and was a permanent part of the news team until 2019. He currently writes on a freelance basis, covering human rights issues, court news and entertainment.
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