The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Urban Management, Alderman Grant Twigg announced that the mayoral committee held on Tuesday 7 December approved informal trading permit fee relief.
He said the Area Economic Development Directorate has been inundated with requests for such relief from the informal trading sector over the last couple of months since the implementation of the Covid-19 pandemic regulations.
Informal traders across the city have been raising concerns about their inability to pay their permit fees due to the negative impact of lockdown and subsequent restrictions, the Mayco member pointed out.
After the meeting he said: “As a responsive and caring City, giving effect to the Mayor’s seven electoral pledges, the plight of the informal trading sector was heard, I am therefore pleased to announce that the Mayoral Committee has:. approved an informal trading permit fee relief to active informal traders for the period 1 January 2022 to 30 June 2022, when no informal trading tariffs will be payable to the City. . approved all informal trading permit fees paid in advance be credited into informal traders’ trading accounts.
This is subject to final approval at the council meeting on Wednesday 15 December.
The current Covid-19 pandemic and its restrictions have disproportionally harmed the informal trading sector in South Africa and globally, and the economic fortunes of the informal trading sector directly depend on the daily retail footfall of customers for earnings and survival. Put differently, the Covid-19 pandemic and its accompanying restrictions drastically reduced the demand side, especially the customers for the informal traders.
Though plausible, the government restrictions on the movement of people to curb the spread of Covid-19 had unintended consequences for the informal trading sector, including traders experiencing a massive loss of income and others being entirely taken out of business.
In addition, this economic crisis was further deepened by some parts of the National Covid-19 Regulations restricting trading in certain types of goods. Therefore it is no exaggeration that the informal trading sector in the City of Cape Town has been hit extremely hard by the Covid-19 crisis he says.
As a result the informal trading sector is currently on its knees trying to recover from this significant unprecedented negative impact, Twigg concluded.
