January 27, 2003
By Bongani Majola
ON foot, on horse back, in patrol cars and others even in tow-trucks, members of the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) attacked the streets of central Johannesburg on Monday as they began a whole week's special campaign of enforcing city by-laws.
Dubbed Operation Nude Ants, the city-wide campaign was launched in September last year and is intended to deal with a range of by-law violations, including illegal dumping, environmental health violations such as open-fire cooking and the sale of livestock, illegal occupation of land and hazardous buildings, liquor licence violations, the operation of illegal taxi ranks and the illegal connection of telephones and electricity.
However, this week's special campaign was focused on the inner city, especially illegal trading in Eloff Street. The stretch of Eloff Street, between Village and De Villiers streets, is the city's densest concentration of informal trading, according to JMPD.
The street also encompasses bus stops on both sides on the roadway on every business block as well as ATMs, which makes street trading strictly restricted by city by-laws. Within the area, Metro Police say, there are also vagrants that use the bus stop shelters to sleep. "Enforcement by JMPD in the area has previously yielded very little results".
Around lunchtime on Monday, a group of illegal traders gathered under a tree in Joubert Street. They sang and chanted in preparation for what they suspected might be a confrontation with law enforcement agencies.
However, the Metro Police went about their operation without any tussles. Countering illegal traders' accusations that the campaign targeted only them, JMPD spokesperson Wayne Minnaar said the accusations were unfounded.
"We will enforce all city by-laws," he said, "this is necessary for the city's economic development as well as the normal functioning of Johannesburg as a whole."
Minnaar emphasised that the inner city in particular was experiencing an influx of street traders, "especially those dealing in counterfeit goods.
"The majority of those traders also happen to be illegal immigrants. So our approach in the operation has been a very holistic one," he said.
