On Wednesday, women belonging to a newly formed movement, aptly named ‘women in business that symbolise power’, donned black and marched to the Mangaung Metro’s regional offices in the large township, to demonstrate against the delayed issuing of trading permits and the lack of job opportunities in the area.

Chairperson of the movement and well-known community builder, Phomolo Raisa, tells OFM News they managed to hand over their detailed memorandum of demands to the regional manager, Jack Matutle, on Wednesday, who in return pledged to have it forwarded to the office of the Free State Premier, Sisi Ntombela. 

Raisa says government’s R350 Social Relief of Distress Grant meant for unemployed South Africans is not sufficient.  

“We want to work, we don’t want R 350, we want jobs. R350 is a small amount of money, you can’t buy much with it,” says Raisa passionately. She goes on to mention the foreign-owned spaza shops in the area, which many have said do not contribute to the economy of the country, because they are often not registered with the South African Revenue Service (Sars), nor are they regulated by the local municipalities.

Despite the latest developments, Mangaung spokesperson, Qondile Khedama, is yet to comment on media queries regarding the group’s concerns.

The grants that Raisa mentioned came under the spotlight on Wednesday as the outgoing Auditor-General (AG), Kimi Makwetu, released his office’s first report on the management of Covid-19 funding. In the report, Makwetu says there is very little in the way of a verification process in determining if an applicant is indeed without any other source of income. 

“The South African Social Security Agency used some government databases to check if applicants have alternate sources of income which would disqualify them for the social relief grant. The databases they have access to are not sufficient, as our data analytics still flagged payments to over 30 000 beneficiaries that required further investigation”. Furthermore, delays in pay-outs have also been reported.

Regarding ‘women in business that symbolise power’, many of the women became traders due to a lack of employment opportunities in Botshabelo - considered one of the largest townships in South Africa - but were placed in a predicament towards the end of March 2020, as government instituted stringent lockdown regulations that initially barred them from trading at all. Following repeated complaints, the government amended the lockdown regulations in early April, to allow informal food traders to operate. This should have signalled the beginning of good news, but it did not. In light of the amended lockdown regulations the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, requested all formal traders in Bloemfontein, Botshabelo, Thaba’ Nchu, Dewetsdorp, and Wepener to apply for permits that will enable them to legally operate.  

According to the Mangaung advert, the informal traders were required to go to the regional office under which they fall, and present their identity documents and proof of residential addresses to obtain the permits. However, this isn’t all they were required to do, in addition to this they were instructed to pay R297 for a certificate of acceptability (COA) and fork out a further R480 to have their businesses registered with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC). Till to date, they are yet to receive their permits. Raisa says when one factor in transportation and paperwork costs, you realise these women have lost out on money that they are yet to recoup. The bureaucracy around the issuing of trading permits and the registration of companies places the women in a catch-22 situation, in light of the lack of employment opportunities in the area. 

Raisa references the now-defunct warehouses that can be spotted from the N8 road outside Botshabelo that used to be run by Chinese companies. She makes an impassioned plea to the local and provincial government to help get those warehouses up and running again.

In 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in his State of the Nation Address that Botshabelo was one of 16 industrial parks countrywide that have undergone revitalisation to stimulate economic growth. Ramaphosa said the township had become productive again after being idle for so long. The other Free State area identified as one of the industrial parks selected for revitalisation, is Phuthaditjhaba in the eastern part of the province. These townships and rural areas join Garankuwa, Isithebe, Komani, and Seshego, among others on the list. Ramaphosa stressed in his address that in order for the country to create jobs, certain levels of economic growth need to be achieved and this cannot be done without “massive new investment”.

OFM News