15Sunday Argus January 10, 2016 News Review

Industrious migrants arean opportunity for SA

MIGRANTS making theirway in the burgeoninginformal economy arehere to stay, and that’sbetter for the country

than policymakers acknowledge, anew book argues.

Mean Streets is the pointedlyironic title of a new book on what isdoubtless the mainstream migrantexperience in cities like Cape Townwhere, for all the opportunities notavailable in Kinshasa, Harare orMogadishu, life is at once rewardingand perilous.

There’s a good living to be madefor those who make the effort – andmigrants have a well-earnedreputation for hard work andresourcefulness – but success can becostly, too.

Means Streets, edited by JonathanCrush, Abel Chikanda and CarolineSkinner – and published jointly bythe Southern African MigrationProgramme, UCT’s African Centrefor Cities and the InternationalDevelopment Research Centre –opens with a telling account of a 2012police campaign in Limpopo.

It was launched ostensibly toarrest criminals and tackle illicitactivities in the province.

In practice, the editors write,“this crusade... targeted smallinformal businesses run bymigrants and refugees”.

Six hundred businesses wereclosed down, the stock confiscated,and the owners detained andshowered with fines and verbalabuse.

Some appealed and won theircase in the Supreme Court – but theenvironment of hostility in whichthese and other migrants across thecountry function was underscoredby the fact this appeal was opposedby all three tiers of government.

The campaign, the appeal and theofficial response reflect essentialcharacteristics of the migrantexperience: the resilience ofmigrants in exploiting opportunitiesagainst the odds, not least formalstate actions that implicitly lendcredence to the popular xenophobicand, now and then, lethal fallacy thatforeigners are parasitic and by theirpresence deny jobs or opportunitiesto South Africans.

Crush, Chikanda and Skinnerwrite: “A central premise of thehostility towards ‘foreigners’ inSouth Africa is that they ‘steal’ jobsfrom South Africans.”

A 2010 survey suggested60 percent of South Africanssubscribed to this view.

The authors (besides the firstchapter written by the three editors,Mean Streets features the work of 22other contributing researchers) citea range of studies that reveal apattern of migrant business ownerscreating jobs for South Africansthrough direct hire.

Also, far from being“disconnected from the formaleconomy”, migrant entrepreneurs,like their non-migrant counterparts,were “integrally linked to the formaleconomy and contribute to itsignificantly” through sourcinggoods and services and paying VAT.

Furthermore, successful migrantbusinesses were good for poorconsumers, too – through theiraggressive price competitiveness,offering a greater variety of goods inflexible quantities (being prepared tosell a single egg instead of a box, say,or a small plastic pouch of sugarinstead of a kilogram packet), andoffering credit, particularly topensioners.

Yet, perversely, policymaking, far

from stimulating and seeking toexploit the benefits of migrantentrepreneurialism, activelydiscourages migrant participationin the economy.

The book examines the 2013 draftLicensing of Businesses Bill and theassociated 2014 National InformalBusiness Upliftment Strategy andfinds both wanting.

The bill, the writers argue,“would result in large-scalecriminalisation of current informalactivities, both South African andmigrant-owned”.

Crush, Chikanda and Skinnerconclude their introductory chapterby noting that Mean Streets“powerfully demonstrates... thatsome of the most dedicated andresourceful entrepreneurs in theSouth African informal economy aremigrants to the country” and thatwhile “under any othercircumstances, they would probablybe lauded as exemplars of small-scale and micro-entrepreneurship”...the state and many citizens “viewtheir activities as undesirablesimply because of their nationalorigins”.

Consequently, “harassment,extortion and bribery... are some ofthe daily costs of doing business” forentrepreneurs who “face constantsecurity threats and enjoy minimalprotection from the police”, have tocontend with often hostile municipalregulations and lack ofinfrastructure and battle to gainaccess to skills training or financialservices.

“As a result, migrantentrepreneurs are unable to utilisetheir entrepreneurial skills andexperience fully and grow theirbusinesses, and thus contribute tothe economy in an optimal fashion.”

These are circumstances, MeanStreets asserts, that call for muchmore creative policymaking.

On one hand, the state and thepublic had to accept that “neitherthe informal economy nor migrantswill go away” and attempts toremove either “will simply forcetheir activities underground, butonly for a period, generatingsignificant hardship in the process”.

On the other hand, it would besmarter for South Africa to focusinstead on making it easier for allpeople to engage in the informaleconomy, to actively encourage skillstransfers between migrants andSouth Africans, and to nurture anintegrated informal sector thatwould be better able to generate jobsand economic activity.

Hate to be catty, Brian, but your circus sure is painting the town redAN OPEN letter to Brian Boswell:

Dear Brian,I have been meaning to write to

you for years to thank you forhelping make my childhood such ahappy one. Back then, of course, youwere known as Boswell WilkieCircus. Now you are simply BrianBoswell’s Circus.

Did you feed Wilkie to the lions? Ihope so. Never liked the man. Nevermet him, of course, but in thiscountry that’s no reason not to hatesomeone.

I have fond memories of going tothe circus in Durban with my family.Dad would buy a ticket and then,once inside, he’d use his diving knifeto cut a hole in the canvas at the backof the stands.

The rest of us would wrigglethrough and go straight to the front.In those days nobody argued with awhite man. Especially not if he wascarrying a six-pack of Black Labeland a nine-inch serrated bladecapable of cutting a shark’s head off.Those were the days, my friend.

How I loved to watch the elephantjumping through flaming hoops.Maybe they were flaming elephantjumping through hoops. My memoryisn’t what it used to be.

The clowns were my best,especially the black ones who wouldrun into the arena and pretend to beshot by other clowns dressed aspolicemen.

Either way, it got a big laugh fromthe crowd. I also clearly rememberan act involving a pony and twowomen dressed in very tight… no,wait. That was something I saw onthe internet last week.

If it wasn’t for you, I would havehad to go to a game reserve if Iwanted to see animals. Animals,needless to say, that dozed undertrees or loitered gormlessly aroundwaterholes doing no tricks at all.

If you were in charge of theKruger Park or Hluhluwe-Imfolozi,things would be very different. I, forone, would be far more inclined to goon game drives if the springboks puton a display of synchronisedpronking, the hippos played waterpolo with the crocodiles and thewildebeest were trained to trot incircles with jackals on their backs.

Field mice on the groundsquirrels would be awesome.

I would also like to thank you forunleashing the hit squad when thosesix tigers escaped recently from your

Natal Zoological Gardens and LionPark.

Tigers make terrible pets andeven worse circus animals. Theysimply refuse to do tricks and willbite your child in half withoutprovocation. Did you know they haveIndian blood in them?

You claim that someone removed

the locks from their cages – someonewho wanted to steal them. Sure, wehave some of the dumbest burglarson the planet, but how dof do youhave to be to try to steal six tigers?

This isn’t an episode of TheHangover. Perhaps they were animalrights activists, but I doubt itbecause even our tree-hugging,

lentil-eating perverts know this is acountry where shots are fired firstand questions asked later.

I have a theory. One of yourtrained chimps, or maybe even amarsupial of sorts, fashioned acrude duplicate key and sprung thecats late on a moonless night.

He or she was obviously on

someone or something’s payroll.But, I am reluctant to speculate.

By the way, congratulations onkeeping this under wraps for at leasta month. A lot of people might thinkthere is something wrong withgunning down six escaped tigers.

Obviously there was a leak.Perhaps one of the people involvedin the operation was a double agentfor the Tamil Tigers or Tiger Brandsor even Tiger Woods. There’s awhole network out there.

The report I read said, “The firstfive were destroyed on the night ofDecember 7 after being foundmilling around staff quarters.”That’s the problem with tigers.They’re either clawing your face offor milling about. Bastards.

Three days later, the sixth tigerwas shot dead “in thick bush” on aneighbouring farm. He deserved todie because he was pretending to bea wild tiger who just wanted to beleft alone. At least the others had thedecency to make an obvious point ofwanting to eat the staff.

As you made it clear to theprying, tiger-loving media, “It wouldnot have been safe to dart them.” Ofcourse it wouldn’t have been. What ifa dart had missed and hit apoliceman who was about to stop anarmed robbery?

He would have fallen asleep andthe baddies would have escaped.This doesn’t explain why so manycops in our charge offices appear to

be tranquillised.Another report quoted you as

saying, “I am not a canned hunter,nor am I in the business of tigerbones”. There is no indication thatthe reporter had asked if you were.I’m sure you’re familiar with theexpression: “The lady doth protesttoo much”. I don’t know what itmeans, but it’s the only one I know.

So the tigers were being preparedfor export to a zoo in the “Far East”.These days, the Far East is threeblocks down, take a right and secondleft. You also said the zoo wanted adozen, but you didn’t have that many.

“The dealers gathered six ofthem to go,” you said. You talk like atiger lord. Or the manager of aChinese takeaway.

I like that. You don’t mince yourwords. Tigers are nice, minced.That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.

Apparently Ezemvelo KZNWildlife is investigating themassacre. What extraordinary luck.Their investigation should bewrapped up within a decade or so,and the outcome will be that all ofyour tigers, dead or alive, shouldfirst be offered to the king of theZulus before being shipped off toChina.

Finally, best of luck with yourbreeding programme. I hear youalready have a liger – a crossbetween a lion and a tiger. Lookingforward to seeing your giruffalo andzebrocerous.

City’s informal sector vital to reducing povertyMICHAEL MORRIS

THE SCALE of Cape Town’sinformal economy – and its impacton poverty reduction – is significant.

The city’s latest EconomicPerformance Indicators for CapeTown report showed that betweenApril and June last year, 161 000individuals (11.3 percent of the totalworkforce) were employed in theinformal sector.

It is estimated that withoutinformal sector income, the povertyrate in the city would be 25.1 percent.Once its income contribution istaken into account, the poverty rateis reduced to 20.6 percent.

Garreth Bloor, mayoral committeemember for tourism, events and

economic development, noted: “Onecannot overestimate the impact ofinformal sector income on otherwiseimpoverished households. The4.5 percentage-point reduction in CapeTown’s poverty rate is equivalent topulling 186 000 individuals out ofpoverty. Although the aggregatecontribution from this sector to GDPmay be small, the aggregateimprovement in well-being is large.”

While almost 40 percent ofinformal sector workers wereemployed in the wholesale and retailbusiness sector, a significantproportion were also engaged inmanufacturing (10.2 percent),construction (13.1 percent), financialservices (10.9 percent) andcommunity services (16.9 percent).

Bloor said if the informal sectorwas viewed as a conventionaleconomic sector and based on aconservative estimate of about10 percent of the workforce, it wouldbe the fifth largest employing sectorin the city, just below manufacturing(11.96 percent) and above theconstruction sector (9.52 percent).

“The informal economy isrepresented by a diverse array ofeconomic activities – includingfinancial services, health care, retailin food and beverages, recycling,maintenance and repair of motorvehicles, and the repair of personaland household goods, to mentionjust a few options.”

Classifying economic activity inCape Town using standard

industrial classification codesshowed that where 41 of the 44categories were represented in theformal economy, 37 were representedin the informal sector.

“When we look at the biggerpicture and at the economy in itsentirety, these numbers are testimonyto the importance of the informalsector as a source of employment.”

The city was committed to“creating a more conduciveenvironment for informal trading”as there were “many moreopportunities for us to make this aneven more lucrative sector”.

With this in mind, the city’seconomic development departmentwas “conducting round-tablediscussions with informal traders to

work with them in finding solutionsto their areas of concern”.

The city’s Small BusinessSupport Office, established topromote entrepreneurship andbusiness-driven job placements,helped business people find the mostappropriate support service from anetwork of over 90 businessdevelopment organisations,including financiers.

Bloor said: “The value of thisservice is that it enablesentrepreneurs to avoid having towaste energy, money and timeapproaching the wrong supportorganisations and service providersor paying for services that aresometimes freely available or partlysubsidised.”

RAMPAGE: Stalls of informal traders in Greenmarket Square are looted in the aftermath of a protest in the city in 2013. Traders are a key part of the city’s important informal sector.PICTURE: MATTHEW JORDAAN

COVER: Mean Streets isedited by JonathanCrush, Abel Chikandaand Caroline Skinner

FERAL: Tigers make terrible pets,seemingly wishing to be alone in the bush somewhere. PICTURE: EPA

A new book argues proposed legislation on foreign businesses needs to be a lot more creative, writes Michael Morris