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[FILE IMAGE]: A community member grabs a piece of fruit at the food market.
The eThekwini Municipality says various factors can be attributed to a 15-year delay to move 18 small traders of Durban Mai-Mai to a more suitable place. The small business people had been operating illegally at this area, located under a bridge near The Workshop Shopping Centre in the Durban CBD.
The Durban Mai-Mai borrowed its name from the famous KwaMai-Mai market near the Maboneng precinct in Johannesburg.
The municipality’s SMME Development Manager Sibusiso Mngoma, says they had to intervene after traders broke a number of by-laws.
“We needed to make sure that at least we put these traders in a place that is designated for trading and not a restricted place in terms of our city by-laws. So, we also wanted to correct that whilst it also empowers us or put us in position to then develop them further, as per our mandate, because our mandate is the development of small businesses and we fall under the directorate of economic development. So, in order for us to develop them, they must first be legally there, be permitted, be at the right place so that we are able to then develop them further,” says Mngoma.
One of the beneficiaries of this municipal intervention is Philani Maluleke, who is happy that they have been moved to a new location.
“I think it’s good. It is better than where we were working before under the bridge. It was filthy sometimes and the drains were not working, but now where we are, we are in a good space. Everyone can see us. Each and every customers are happy now. Even the old gogos and mkhulus are coming now. Not like under the bridge because they were scared to go down there. Now here, everyone is coming up here,” says Maluleke.
