With over one thousand non-compliant spaza shops, factories and warehouses being forced to shut their doors, the City of Tshwane seeks to strengthen its approach to this crisis by approving a draft informal trading and township economy bylaw for public consultation.

It is less than two weeks until the registration deadline and many spaza shop owners are struggling to meet registration requirements in the City of Tshwane.

“All the paperwork etc., including the foreign nationals that are operating, they don’t have the required documentation to present to us, including the documentation to be in the city,” says Tshwane Executive Mayor Nasiphi Moya.

Moya says to reinforce compliance, a new by-law has been drafted, which the city claims, will enforce health and safety standards. But importantly the registration for locally owned spaza shops will be prioritised over those that are foreign owned.

“In that by-law obviously, we used as an opportunity, not only to ensure that businesses in the City of Tshwane are compliant, but they must make sure that they protect public health. But we also use it as an opportunity to say can we use the by-law to reserve certain sectors such as spaza shop for locals, that is on the bylaw that is out for public participation.”

VIDEO | The City of Tshwane says it will prioritise locals.  

As the deadline nears the city acknowledges some of the challenges faced by these owners.

“Except, I think the difficulty is in the type of paper documentation you require from the zoning department. I think that’s where everyone is struggling because people in the townships typically, they want to wake up, use their garage to run their business. But we are saying as the city if you do it that way, we are unable to protect the public because we don’t know what you are doing in your garage,” the Mayor highlighted.

As of December, over1 100 have applied for registration in the Tshwane metro, 50%  less than the applications received in the country’s busiest city, Johannesburg.