Cut number of foreign spaza shops - Western Cape ANC

The ANC in the Western Cape wants the government to cut the number of foreign-owned spaza shops and will push for this during the party’s policy conference in Joburg this week.

ANC provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile said party branches, especially those in townships, were concerned that the majority of the province’s spaza shops were owned, managed and staffed by foreigners, and that locals were “losing out”.

“The ratio between the number of migrants who own spaza shops and locals is completely out,” Mjongile said. “We need a balance around small enterprises in our communities.

“The government must find a way to support locals so that they too can open shops and be economically active, but then the number of foreign-owned spaza shops has to be cut.”

In its Peace and Stability policy document, which is to be discussed at Gallagher Estate this week, the ANC proposes that non-South Africans should not run spaza shops without adhering to “certain legislated prescripts”, which may or may not be different to those applying to South Africans.

Mjongile said the ANC in the Western Cape supported the proposals in the document “100 percent” and that it would be “pushing hard” to ensure that resolutions were made in its favour and adopted.

The document says “non-South Africans should not be allowed to buy or run spaza shops or larger businesses without having to comply with local laws”. It also says that “laws and by-laws have to be made in a way that impacts positively rather than negatively on the informal economic sector”, and argues that the renting of houses by asylum seekers from South Africans for informal trading may contravene by-laws.

Calling for a strengthening and proper enforcement of municipal by-laws, it says: “Ideally municipalities should know who lives and works and runs businesses in their area as well as their status.”

Refugee rights group Passop has described the proposals as “unconstitutional” and “foolish”.

Passop’s Braam Hanekom said he was shocked and surprised that the Western Cape ANC had indicated it would support the document.

“As Passop, we strongly oppose it. It is unconstitutional and a foolish move,” Hanekom said.

He added that it was “extremely concerning” that some of the proposals in this discussion document were already being implemented”.

Hanekom said closing the refugee reception centre in Cape Town and moving it to the border was one of the proposals.

He said while it might be too late to call a meeting with the leadership of the ANC in the Western Cape, Passop would do “everything possible” to ensure that the proposals were rejected. “Supporting this policy document is not in the interest of the communities that the ANC represents,” he said.

“This is anti-immigrant and violates refugee rights.

“The spaza shop owners feed these communities, their prices are the cheapest. The ANC seems to be more concerned about the businessmen and elite in the townships and not the poor families who depend on the foreign-owned spaza shops for cheaper loaves of bread and cups of rice.”

Spaza shop owners are livid about the proposals. (from IOL) 

Blame Whitey (what the Spear taught me)

The controversy over the Brett Murray painting The Spear has brought the racial fracture lines of South Africa front and centre. Art is what you personally make of it. Interpretation is everything. The "outrage" which has been stirred up by the ANC in particular has had a decided racial angle about it. Why did the race of the artist matter? Senior counsel Malindi had to concede in court that the matter was not about race, yet the ANC continued to cast it as such.

The change in racial discourse in the past two months has been noticible. The victims of the piece are "blacks in general" and the villains are "the whites". The racial epithets are used without questioning whether they are valid. Continuing to use the racial classification of pre-1994 shows that we have learned nothing from history. .
 

The time of blaming failure on apartheid is over. Now is the time to blame "whites". Julius Malema set the alarm bells ringing with his black and white view of the world. To hear it from Kgalema Motlanthe was sad.

Where has the president been while all this has been happening? Absent as usual? No. 

The SABC describe how:

"At the end of his keynote address to the National Union of Mineworkers' conference held in Kempton Park last Wednesday, visibly-hurt and emotionally-shaken President Jacob Zuma broke into a liberation song titled: "Senzeni na?" (What have we done "to deserve this cruel racist treatment"?). Never before have I seen Zuma in such a shaken and troubled state of emotional composure."

The president is out there playing the victim. He's not out there vacuously promising jobs any more, he's playing the race card. After his advocate had conceded that it was not about race in court he's back at it. I have to wonder if the president was able to push some fake tears? A worthy performance from the same man who has been totally silent when our black brethren are beating on their African brothers. 
 

Justice Malala asked Paul Mashatile the ultimate question of why he "as a black person" should be offended by the painting. There was no answer. 

I am tired of being racially classified. I keep paying for the colour of my skin. Try and transform as I might I just don't seem to be turning "black". From now on I am going to have to challenge all attempts at classification with "Hold on - if you are going to want to use racial classifications then you are going to have to have an authority to determine what race people are." Calling me "white" is an insult. It is up there with "you people" "coloured" "Indian" "coolie" "hotnot" "nigger" "spick" "kaffer" and "blacks in general".  

One Party State by Brett Murray. Interpret it as you please or will.

Diversity

Chaos as Africans attacked

Violent race riots that shook southern Tel Aviv overnight sparked shock in Israel yesterday but also prompted top-level calls for the immediate arrest and expulsion of tens of thousands of African migrants.

The latest unrest to sweep the impoverished neighbourhoods around Tel Aviv's central bus station erupted when a demonstration by about 1000 people, protesting against the rising number of Africans moving into the area, turned violent.

"Shock, violence and hatred of foreigners in Tel Aviv" was the headline in the Maariv daily, which described scenes of chaos as demonstrators went on the rampage with sticks and stones, attacking African-run shops and smashing up a car driven by two African men.

"Blacks out," shouted demonstrators in the crowd, while others yelled: "Send the Sudanese back to Sudan."

Most reports said the rally turned nasty after the crowd was whipped up by several racist speeches from rightwing MPs, several of them from the ruling Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"The infiltrators are a cancer in our body," Likud MP Miri Regev told the crowd, as fellow MP Danny Danon shouted: "The infiltrators must be expelled from Israel! Expulsion now!"

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said 20 people had been arrested on suspicion. There were no reports of injuries.

Interior ministry statistics show there are more than 60000 African immigrants living illegally in Israel.

- Timeslive

Somali traders living in terror

Somali shop traders in Masiphumelele fear for their lives after a series of attacks over the past two months left more than eight critically injured.

“It’s horrible… we are facing a really scary time,” said Abdullahi Hussein Mohamed, a shop owner and spokesman for Somali traders in Masiphumelele.

He said that in the past, robbers would come inside their shops, point a gun and demand money. But now “they come to our shops and they just start shooting. People get shot at while they are sleeping,” he said.

Masiphumelele is between Kommetjie, Capri Village and Noordhoek.

“Although we are foreigners far from home, we are living within a community and we are supposed to help each other,” said Mohamed. “We are scared but we have no choice, our children have to be fed,” he said.

When the Cape Argus visited shop owner Therie Aman, 26, this week, he had just returned from Groote Schuur Hospital after being shot three times in his hand and chest. A bullet is still lodged in the middle of his chest. “I have to go back to the hospital in a few days… I am in pain and scared… but …I have to work.”

Aman said he and his partner, Abdul Qadir Hassan, were in the shop when two young men came in. One started shooting at them. “I spent more than three hours waiting for the police, lying on the floor,” he said.

Police spokesman Frederick van Wyk said they had arranged a number of meetings with the Somali shop owners and proposed that they close at 8pm. “Instead, they close at midnight,” said Van Wyk. He said that when incidents happened, they did not call the police immediately and that sometimes, the shop owners refused to open cases.

Around the corner from Aman’s shop is the store of Shurif Ali, 32, and his brother, Mustafa, 28. Two weeks ago, they were robbed and Mustafa was shot.

He had to have surgery at Groote Schuur to remove a bullet in his chest. He was discharged yesterday.

“Last Saturday they shot at us and while my brother was lying on the floor, they took about R2 000 from the till. Now we close earlier, but… they come during the day, too,” he said.

Ali said they had stopped reporting the incidents to the police because they didn’t get any feedback.

- Cape Argus

Too many "foreign shops" in Diepsloot

 

Competition tensions are escalating between local businessmen and foreign nationals who own businesses in Diepsloot.

Locals are accusing Somali, Pakistani and Ethiopian nationals of taking their “bread” away from them by having more shops than them and trading at very low prices.

They have also accused them of not being in possession of valid trading licences, not being tax compliant and turning RDP houses into spaza shops.

Diepsloot community policing forum (CPF) chairperson Sam Seale told The New Age yesterday that the forum had received several complaints from local businessmen that foreigners were “bankrupting” them.

Seale said new ways of encouraging foreign nationals to reduce their numbers were discussed at a meeting last week.

“We will be holding another meeting this weekend with all parties involved to reach an amicable solution,” he said.

Seale said the CPF supported the call to reduce the number of foreign-owned businesses.

“You will find, for example, one Pakistan national owning up to 10 shops in the area, making it difficult for locals to survive the competition,” he said.

Seale said they have invited a body that represents foreign businessmen to attend the meeting which will be held on Saturday at Diepsloot Extension 7 MPCC community hall.

Business and enterprise forum chairperson Baznaar Moloi said foreigners owning many shops in the townships and informal settlements was a problem about which the organisation received complaints from Sebokeng, Orlando, Soweto and Sharpeville to Daveyton on the East Rand.

Though Moloi did not say which trade law of the country was being undermined by the spread of foreign-owned shops, he insisted that locals must “have their share of the cake”.

Abram Mabuke, a local councillor, said complaints about shops owned by foreigners had become tedious.

“As the government we do not have a problem with foreigners having shops.

“They can have as many shops as they want as long as proper procedures are followed,” he said.

Mabuke said he will notify law enforcement agencies to be on standby to prevent any violence at foreign business owners. (from the New Age)

Foreign nationals waiting to renew refugee papers