Members of the One Voice of All Hawkers Association marched to the offices of the department of economic development in Jorissen Place yesterday morning. The crowd was led by One Voice president and member of the City of Johannesburg informal trading forum technical task team , Zakharia Ramatula. Theydemanded that deputy director of informal trading in the department, Xolani Nxulamo, receive their memorandum of grievances to hand to Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo.
The association is unhappy with “false promises” made by the department and complained about the Metro police harassing them and impounding their goods while giving them exorbitant fines. Ramatula said corruption was rife in the department and Nigerian hawkers were bribing officials to take the trading spaces that South African hawkers have been promised by government. He said voting in the local government elections would be a waste of time as the ANC government has failed to deliver to its people.
