Spaza shops owners in Motherwell, Gqeberha attend a registration workshop in Motherwell on 28 November 2024. (Photo: Gallo Images / Die Burger / Lulama Zenzile) 
With just 72 hours before the spaza shop registration deadline, unregistered business owners are growing increasingly anxious. Some are scrambling to meet the Friday, 13 December deadline after attempting to register their businesses multiple times without success.
“I have not registered and I do not know when I will go back because I was told to come back another time,” a Soweto woman who gave her name only as Mrs Hegele told Daily Maverick from her newly opened spaza shop.
“I thought I should go and register before I open my shop but now I don’t know what to do,” said Hegele.
She is not the only one.
“What is happening in our country? Why are we being cornered to chase such tight deadlines? I was queueing for days waiting to fix my electricity prepaid meter. Now I am queueing to get permission to run my store.
“The government sold the country long ago, and I don’t understand why we are being indiscriminately made to bear the brunt,” said storeowner Nkosazana Mhlongo, who attempted to register her business at the busy registration office in Jabulani, Soweto.
With a heavy heart, Mhlongo returned home this week without registering her spaza shop. Like Hegele, she was dejected and said she wasn’t sure what to do next as she had failed to register for a third day running. Mhlongo said she had all the required documentation and blamed the prolonged delay on staff at the City of Johannesburg’s registration offices.
A Somali shop owner who was accused of giving two boys chips, which allegedly killed one of them in Protea, Soweto, said, “I brought all the documents but my asylum papers have expired. We ask the President to extend the deadline so that we can get all the documents and comply [with] the government’s standards.”
“I’m tired. Now I see others are taking out money and they are assisted quickly. I cannot go that route because I have committed to being compliant. It’s either the deadline is extended or we will face serious compliance issues in the long run,” he said.
Dr Vusumuzi Sibanda from the African Diaspora Forum said, “There was a need to put some form of deadline… Obviously, that needs to be reviewed. People ought to have known that they should register their businesses anyway.
“But now that it seems capacity, the turnaround time, outweighs the capacity for registrations.”
Registration requirements
Many registrations are being hindered because people lack some essential documents.
To successfully register their business, they need:
- ID document for South Africans or a passport and visa or refugee permit for foreign nationals;
- Proof of address, which can be a municipal bill statement, rental agreement or letter showing the shop’s address;
- Application form from the municipality’s office or website;
- Business details, such as the items sold in the shop;
- An affidavit that states that the business is compliant.
It differs slightly for non-South Africans. To register successfully, they need the same documents and proof that they are allowed to run a business in the country.
This means providing a valid passport, asylum seeker permit, or refugee permit and a valid business visa.
‘Register or face the law’
In November, President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered all spaza shops to re-register within 21 working days after 23 deaths, mostly of children, had been recorded since the beginning of the year. The deaths were allegedly linked to spaza shops and their alleged sale of lethal pesticides.
The National Informal Traders Alliance of South Africa described Ramaphosa’s deadline as “impossible”.
Read more: Spaza shop re-registration — capacity fears as Gauteng government outlines steps for mammoth task
Should business owners miss the Friday deadline, their shops could be shut down and they could face hefty fines.
Speaking last week, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said 51,788 spaza shops had been registered so far and 800 had closed, 93% of which he said had been owned by migrants. It’s unclear how many businesses still need to register.
City of Johannesburg spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane said on Tuesday, “The City of Johannesburg is calling on spaza shop owners to take immediate action and hand in their applications before the deadline on Friday, 13 December 2024. To date, a total of 5,944 applications have been issued from the 25 registration centres across the city’s seven regions to process.
“Failure to comply with the regulations deadline may result in the closure of establishments operating without proper authorisation. The city is committed in ensuring that all spaza shop owners have the opportunity to register and participate in the local economy within the framework of the law.”
On Wednesday, Gauteng MEC for Economic Development Lebogang Maile will update the media on the progress of the business registrations.
The National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (Natjoints) is coordinating the government’s response and the Department of Small Business Development and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) have had little to say on the registrations.
Speaking to radio station 702 on Monday evening, Small Business Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams said her department was responsible for the enforcement of relevant by-laws. She said the right department to ask in-depth questions on registrations was Cogta.
However, speaking to Daily Maverick on Tuesday morning, Cogta spokesperson Legadima Leso said the Natjoints was working on a coordinated response.
“Cogta was just responsible for putting together by-laws, mobilising municipalities and the provinces to implement the registrations and that has been done,” Leso said.
“The department which runs small businesses is responsible for the businesses. They can provide that information. Cogta will only tell you about by-laws,” Leso said.
Lack of compliance
Addressing the media after a Cabinet meeting last week, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said authorities had visited almost 200,000 spaza shops since Ramaphosa’s directive while more than 1,000 spaza shops, supermarkets and warehouses had been closed.
When asked about what had been discovered during inspections under way across the country, spokesperson for the National Consumer Commission Pheto Ntaba said spaza shops were generally non-compliant.
“Spaza shops generally do not comply with the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act (unlabelled goods, sale of expired goods, do not issue receipts, do not take exchanges or returns where goods are not fit for purpose),” Ntaba said.
“We have now extended our inspections to wholesalers.” DM