WeeklySA_AdminCLAMPDOWN: South Africa’s neighbour targets retail businesses illegally operated by foreigners in a sector reserved for Zimbabweans…
By Isaac Moledi
The Zimbabwean government has launched a crackdown on foreign-owned spaza or tuckshops operating in the country illegally – in a move that resonates with imminent plans by South African authorities to combat a similar phenomenon.
Last week, the Zimbabwean Minister of Trade and Commerce, Sithembiso Nyoni warned that no foreigner would be allowed to run or operate businesses illegally on Zimbabwean soil.
In a turn of events similar to South Africa and elsewhere on the African continent, the Zimbabwean government recently conducted a series of raids on foreign-owned spaza shops across the country, emphasising that a raft of retail activities in the sector were strictly reserved for Zimbabweans.
The reserved sectors in Zimbabwe include transport (passenger buses, taxis and car hire services), retailing, wholesaling, hair salons, advertising agencies, estate agencies, grain milling, bakeries, tobacco grading and packaging and artisanal mining.
The recent crackdown on foreign-owned spaza shops in Zimbabwe echoes a nationwide outcry in South Africa over the mushrooming of illegal spaza shops owned by foreigners – something that has sparked a widespread vigilante backlash, including random government inspections on such business, mostly operating illegally in the townships such as Soweto.
Meanwhile, South African police have come under heavy public criticism for not doing ‘enough’ to clampdown on the problem of illegal spaza/tuck shops operated mostly by African and Asian immigrants. Police Minister Bheki Cele was quoted recently as saying that they have discovered factories where foreign nationals are manufacturing illegal food – the suspected source of a series of poisoning incidents involving dozens of schoolchildren in several parts of the country. Scores, among them children, have died in the process due to consuming expired or poisonous foodstuffs.
Consequently, the incidents have triggered public backlash as well as violent skirmishes between residents and foreign spaza shop owners in some Gauteng townships. Scores of spaza shops have since been shut down in KwaThema in Ekurhuleni and some parts of Soweto with immigrant traders forced to leave.
Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has – on the other hand – directed all municipalities to audit foreign nationals’ spaza shops in their jurisdictions. Motsoaledi says this is part of an inter-governmental approach in response to the public outcry after several learners died, allegedly after consuming products from spaza shops.
To open a spaza shop in South Africa, one needs a business license and a valid trading permit. If selling prepared food, one needs a certificate of acceptability. By definition, spaza shops must not be larger than 30m2, and they must exist in residential areas. These shops are not permitted to sell alcohol or any other restricted items, but some have previously been bust for selling drugs and other hazardous substances.
One explanation for the proliferation and success of foreign-owned spaza shops, as compared to their South African counterparts, is their price competitiveness, which is especially important in low-income environments such as townships.
In Zimbabwe, Nyoni discouraged foreigners from involvement in local-only business sectors, cautioning that it was illegal for foreigners to operate in those designated activities.
“Retail is a sector reserved for Zimbabweans,” said Nyoni in a video screened by Donald Nyandoro. “We are here to implement the laws of Zimbabwe,” the minister said, warning foreign nationals illegally operating tuck shops in downtown Zimbabwe’s capital Harare.
To run or operate a spaza shop or a tuckshop business in Zimbabwe, most city or town councils in the country have provisions for pre-planned corner shops (tuckshops) on their master plans. As a Zimbabwean, you can either lease the land or buy it. Once this is done, you then build your tuckshop and apply for a license. There are two types of licenses, a temporary one and a permanent one.
While doing the inspections around Harare, Nyoni was quoted as saying that her government was not going to close foreigners out. “If you are a foreigner, there is a certain threshold that you are allowed to trade. If you are below that threshold, then you are breaking the laws of Zimbabwe,” she told Zimbabwe media.
According to the minister, her department was out in the streets to find out for itself what is that they can do to help the foreigners. “We don’t want to accuse anyone; we don’t want to be chasing people away; we don’t want to be cruel to anyone. But I want every person to know that we are here to implement the laws of Zimbabwe. For me, it is the implementing of the Act that I am responsible to”.
Foreigners from countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, DRC, Somalia, Mozambique and Zambia among others, operate most tuckshops in Harare. This was confirmed by the local Tuckshop Owners Association, which said that Zimbabweans just rent the shops from the foreigners who have become the owners of the shops.
Last month, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi announced plans to reclaim back all spaza shops owned by foreigners “unapologetically”. Lesufi said the provincial government would help township residents to buy back those spazas as well as help them with securing stock through a collective buying mechanism spearheaded by his government.
In his state of the province address earlier this year, Lesufi said: “We are told that the reasons our spaza shops are struggling is because they don’t have a collective buying power. We have now finalised a financing model to allow township businesses to have their own bulk buying mechanism through the establishment of township-based warehouses and distribution centres, such as the ones we already launched in Katlehong and Mamelodi. We have also adopted a prototype for these retail shops (loosely known as Spaza shops) so that we can differentiate them from shops owned by foreign nationals. We are now firmly reclaiming our shops in the townships.”
Elsewhere, in 2020, some Ghanaian traders at Suame, Kumasi, locked up the shops of some Nigerians who they accused of engaging in local retail trade in violation of the stated provisions of the Ghana Investment Promotion Law (Act 865), which frown on foreigners engaging in the retail business
According to Ghanaian law, any foreigner who wanted to do business in the west African country was required to invest a minimum of about R18 million and employ at least 12 Ghanaian citizens.
Responding to the crackdown on Nigerian traders in Ghana at the time, President of the Nigerian Traders Association of Ghana, (NUTAG), Chwukuemeka Nnaji said the retail trade laws in their country (Nigeria) do not bar Ghanaians from operating – though Ghana law prevented them from engaging in retail businesses.
He added: “We have what we call the Nigeria Investment Promotion Centre (NIPC). Our law does not focus or target any particular country or people…we don’t call West Africans foreigners in Nigeria, that is why Ghanaians are actually in every part of Nigeria.” Botswana moves to restrict business activities for foreigners.
In the case of Botswana, her trade laws are almost similar as those of Zimbabwe, barring foreigners from operating in a range of retail businesses in the same mould.
