JMPD impounds goods of Joburg street traders in by-law crackdown

Johannesburg’s metro police say officers have been sent out in numbers to impound the goods of informal traders operating illegally in the city, taking both perishable and non-perishable stock off the streets.

The Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department announced the operation on its official X account on Thursday, saying officers were “cleaning the City of JHB” by impounding goods from illegal informal traders. The post carried four photographs.

The department set out its reasoning in the same post: it is illegal to push a trolley on the road, and doing so obstructs the movement of vehicles and pedestrians. Its warning to traders was blunt. “Do not trade illegally or your goods will be impounded,” it said.

The operation was posted under the city’s by-law and road safety hashtags, alongside #BuyaMthethoManjeNamhlanje, the enforcement campaign whose name translates as “the law must return, now, today”.

For the traders who work the city’s pavements and intersections, an impounded load is lost income and lost stock, and perishable goods cannot be recovered once seized. The department did not say in the post how many traders were affected, where the operation took place, or what happens to goods once they are impounded.

Trolley trading on Johannesburg’s roads has been a recurring point of friction between the city and informal traders, with enforcement operations periodically removing traders and their stock from the streets. The metro police have framed Thursday’s action as a road safety and by-law matter.