Green Point traders are seething after trading was suspended for Sunday 5 January 2020 due to a PSL football match. According to the City of Cape Town, a soccer game at the stadium scheduled to start at 15h30 requires trading area (P4) for the purpose of parking. The chairperson of the Cape Town Stadium Market traders, Rasheda Muller said traders are angry, as many have been stocking up with consumables, food and other goods for the first Sunday of 2020. To deny them trading will result in monetary losses, she said.

Muller told VOC Breakfast Beat that the long-awaited and much-anticipated return to the Green Point common precinct has been marred by the latest disruption and the very existence of the market hangs in the balance.

“This development is being viewed as a betrayal of trust by traders, and a slap in the face of the informal economy. E-mails to the City, if anything, has revealed the excess of beaurocratic red tape that exists within the administration,” said Muller.

“What about our visitors who will travel from all over the metro and afar to find the area abandoned, except perhaps for a dozen or so cars?’

Mayco member for urban management Alderman Grant Twigg told VOC he would meet with the stadium’s stakeholders on Tuesday to iron out the matter.

“What happened is very unfortunate. The trading is very important to us and at the opening, the Mayor said it should be on a continuous basis. However, all the traders are aware of the fact that when there are events, there is no trading. So now we want to look at how to have consistent trading and how the events will impact on the trading space.”

Twigg said his office was only made aware of the soccer match last week and informed the traders on Monday.

Muller said the soccer authorities and CT City Football club have given their assurance that the P4 area is not a prerequisite of theirs and that trading on the day will not have any effect on them whatsoever.

“So one needs to ask who the person or persons within the council are who take decisions, literally at the stroke of a pen and indeed without any consideration for the livelihoods of informal economy workers,” she lamented.

“Clearly they are not in sync with the requirements of the record of decision 6.13.3 which clearly underpins the rights of traders over parking on tarred areas within the urban park precinct.”

Failing the successful outcome of our appeal, Muller said the CTSM traders will “exercise all options” at their disposal.

The vendors are awaiting the City’s response to their appeal to trade.

VOC