The informal traders selling at Stretford station in Orange Farm (West of Johannesburg, South Africa) have been living in agitations recently after having received a verbal notice that they will be evicted from their trading site to make way for the construction of a mall.
Mama Ernestina Sithole, a widow and grandmother of seven, wants the sale transaction of the land and plans for the building of the mall to be halted. Mama Sithole reveals how it all started: “When we started to trade here in 1989 during apartheid, there were no municipal by-laws or regulations of traders. With only two trains, we survived selling to commuters and why should they make our life hell now in a democratic dispensation when there is more trains and more commuters. We should be allowed to sell more freely to support our families because this is the only means of our livelihood. We want the initial agreement to still be honoured, whereby we are only allowed to trade in stalls in the entrance of the station and not stores inside the mall. We cannot afford to pay more than R100, our profit is little and many of us have many responsibilities”.
Mama Sithole is amongst the few who are the first in Orange farm, who settled in Extension 1 since 1989, where they are still living. They approached the municipality, who was known as the TPA for work but were without luck. Mr. DeBeers who was a land owner then encouraged women like Mama Sithole to brew mageu and make fat cakes and sell at the station. And that’s how they have survived and supported their families.
She and other fellow traders are in distress because if the land on which they are trading in is sold by December this year then that will mean automatic eviction for all traders. Between now and the selling date of the land, traders have vowed to fight for their right to make a living. The Stretford traders are amongst many vulnerable groups of the poor experiencing injustice of the system. Others groups such as the Cloverdene Homeless community who have on numerous occasions faced threats of evictions and be forcefully displaced in their dwelling places.
She continues to elaborate: “We started to experience threats in our businesses in 1992 when a man called Majola came harassing and chasing us to move away from the station and his land. We resisted eviction and upon doing our own investigations, we discovered that he was not even the landlord and in 1993 he disappeared. Then in 1994 Mr Liewemann surfaced as the landlord and immediately also instructed us to stop trading at the station. We refused to go away. We then told him that we had been there long before he bought the land. We explained to him that the station is a lucrative trading site because most of our customers were commuters using trains. He then agreed that we can continue trading here at the entrance of the station. It is strange that he has now shifted from our original agreement but we will not be timid, we are prepared to fight for our rights to trade here. If we are hungry most of us come here, it has become a shared space for all of us to make a living without having to produce qualifications or certain skills. We don’t say we will not pay rent but we must be given trading space that we can afford to pay and that the rental charges must be reasonable”.
According to the traders they were recently visited by people who claimed to belong to Business Forum and Urban Development respectively, both also indicating that they were acting on behalf of the landlord of the land on which they were trading to come to give verbal notice for the traders to move out so that the construction of the mall would resume. The irate traders have continuously defied verbal notice of eviction by continuing to trade at the station and held meetings with the landlord. They have since approached the Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) to help strengthen their struggle to not lose their right to trade and get better deals from the landlord once the mall is built. The LHR officials and has subsequently engaged the owner (Mr David Liewemann) of the land earmarked to be used to build a mall next to the Stretford station.
In a feedback meeting held last week between the informal traders and LHR officials, the informal traders were still baffled that Mr Liewemann has retrogressed from their original agreement. The traders insist that the landlord assured them that no matter what, they will always be tenants and traders at the land next to the station. He even made them sign agreement of such decision which further assures them that they will only pay R100 per stall on a monthly basis.
However, the feedback from the LHR officials who went to meet Mr Liewemann about the distress of traders signifies that the building of the mall is imminent and that there is little that the traders can do about it. Mr Liewemann is offering to accommodate 32 traders whom he found at the station when he became the new landlord in 1994. He has promised to make available seven square metres each to the 32 traders inside the mall which may be sponsored by other big retailers such as Pick ’n Pay. The traders will be expected to pay at least 25% of rental and when their businesses pick up; they are expected to pay up to a minimum of R1000 per a month. Once the mall is built it will be illegal for traders to continue selling at the station or near the mall.
Bheki Mathebula, one of the traders in attendance at the meeting asked: “Is the landlord hell-bent on going ahead with the construction of the mall whereas it will result in many of us being forced to shut down our businesses and go home to suffer”. The question to which the LHR officials responded with a sad and loud yes and further elaborating that the landlord want traders to move to trade at taxi rank instead of the mall. However, the officials promised the traders that they will put more effort in ensuring that the construction of the mall does not take away their rights to continue selling and making a living. It also came to light that the landlord is currently leasing the land with prospects that the transaction sale will be finalised not later than the end of this year.
The imminent eviction of traders at the station has equally affected both the old and the young. One of the youth traders at the station, Daniel Letsholonyane says that traders as members of the community in Orange Farm welcome developments but it should not come at traders’ expense. “We do not want developments that will marginalise and make us more poorer. If the development is genuine then we should be all be consulted as stakeholders and reach amicable solution. We cannot allow government, business and the landlord to make decisions that negatively impact us without challenging them. This land belongs to us all”.
