Picture: Local salon owners in a meeting at Taung CBD
By OBAKENG MAJE
More than 20 salon owners operating in Taung CBD embarked on a peaceful protest on Friday and requested the Greater Taung Local Municipality for intervention. This comes after allegations that some of salons owned by foreigners continue to operate illegally during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
One of the local salon owners, Moreri Seanyane said the prolonged lockdown has affected their businesses. Senayan added that some of the foreign-owned salons continue to operate in Taung and no legal steps were taken against them.
“We have a crisis during this lockdown as informal traders. We have not received any relief fund nor food parcels. Most informal traders who are registered at the municipality to operate in the Taung CBD are in the dark.
“We embarked on a peaceful protest to call on the municipality for intervention. The municipality has a Local Economic Development (LED) structure but is rendered incompetent. We cannot continue to close business, while foreigners are operating,” he said.
Another local salon owner, Fuziwe Sokupha shared the same sentiments. Sokupha said they once engaged the municipality regarding the illegality of those foreign-owned salons operating in town, but instead, the municipality accused them of xenophobia.
“It is hard-breaking because even our ward councillors withhold information and that leaves us vulnerable. It’s been three weeks since I engaged my ward councillor regarding the relief fund and food parcels, but he sent me from post to pillar.
“We have evidence that illegal salon owners continue to trade, while we are not working. We believe that this is so unfair because we pay rent and services to the municipality as informal traders working in town, but there are people who are operating illegally and nothing is done to curb this,” she said.
Meanwhile, the GTLM ward 8 councillor, Mothohela Motshabi said: “Those informal traders raised a valid point and we have advised them to write down their grievances so that they can be addressed. The municipality informed all Small Medium Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) owners to approach their ward councillors and submit their names in order to be considered for the relief fund.”
South Africa has approximately 2.5 million SMMEs in the country and that 1.5 million of them are in the informal sector.
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