The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Greater Tzaneen Municipality (GTM) has submitted a set of questions to the municipality for written response at the next Council meeting, scheduled for 30 October 2025, with the aim of securing better enforcement of the municipality’s street trading regulatory framework. This comes as informal trading continues to proliferate across Tzaneen in an unregulated and unmanaged manner, to the detriment of the CBD, formal businesses, and the public.
Currently, informal trading in GTM is effectively unregulated. Traders without permits or registration are able to operate anywhere they choose, without consequence. This has resulted in serious congestion and frustration for both pedestrians and motorists, while formal businesses – who pay to lease sidewalk and pavement space – are placed at a clear disadvantage.
In some cases, informal traders have even occupied loading zones, causing severe disruption to delivery trucks servicing formal businesses.
From interactions with the Tzaneen community and an online poll conducted by the DA, public opinion is clear: residents want the municipality to better regulate and control the informal trading sector.
The DA is seeking clarity on the municipality’s current processes to monitor and regulate informal trading in Tzaneen, as well as answers on what measures will be taken to strengthen regulation and enforcement to ensure fairness between informal traders, formal businesses, and the public.
The DA fully supports the right of informal traders to earn a livelihood, but this must take place within a clearly defined regulatory framework that ensures safe, orderly, and equitable street trading for the benefit of all.
It is unacceptable that a lack of law enforcement capacity and budget has reduced bylaw enforcement to occasional “clean-up operations” once every three or four months. This is wholly inadequate.
The DA will continue to:
- Push for consistent law enforcement;
- Demand the allocation of sufficient budget to appoint additional law enforcement officials; and
- Call for the regular, proactive enforcement of municipal bylaws – not merely periodic interventions.
We will also continue to hold the municipality accountable to ensure a fair, safe, and properly regulated informal trading environment that respects the rights of all stakeholders.