The South African Informal Traders Alliance (Saita) says it was a normal business day for some informal traders such as hawkers, spaza shop owners, and home-based operators across all nine provinces in South Africa amid the national shutdown.
This comes after the EFF embarked on a national shutdown on Monday in protest against load shedding, unemployment, crime, and gender-based violence, and calling on President Cyril Ramaphosa to step down.
Speaking to Cape Talk radio station, Saita president Rosheda Muller said it was a difficult day for informal traders because they needed their daily income to survive and put food on their table.
“Many informal business operators across the country had to work and this is the only way for them to survive. However, the intimidation and fear is something they had to consider, knowing very well that many of our informal traders are elderly women and it was a huge risk for them,” she said.
Muller added that despite the high risk, the vast majority of them decided that they were going to trade, but with more than 24 000 tyres being confiscated and over 57 protesters arrested it was concerning that they might be affected by violence.
“Informal traders across the country pledged to go work because of the income they need to have at the end of the day because they need to feed their families,” she said.
Muller raised concerns that there would be a loss of stock for those who decided not to trade today and it would have a bad impact on traders since there was no insurance that funded or insured the damage that happened in informal trading when such situations arose.
