Colonial Policing Returns: Metro Police Harass Black Vendors While Drug Crisis Consumes Durban CBD
The systematic harassment of Black street vendors by Durban Metro Police exposes the enduring legacy of apartheid-era policing, where authorities prioritise criminalising Black economic survival over addressing real threats to community safety.
Rasta Jija and fellow informal traders are facing relentless persecution from Metro Police officers who conduct daily raids on Bertha Mkhize Street and the Warwick Triangle, confiscating goods and imposing crushing R600 fines on vendors struggling to feed their families.
This selective enforcement becomes even more damning when contrasted with Metro Police Colonel Boysie Zungu's own admission that authorities are "losing the battle" against drug-related crime and vagrancy that terrorises the CBD.
The Real Crime: Economic Apartheid
Thabo Ngcobo, a member of the Phinifa neDuku Association representing pinafore and headscarf vendors, describes the daily trauma inflicted by police raids: "We are literally living with the police. They come every day to confiscate our stock. Even if you kneel down and beg them, they don't listen."
The R600 fine represents weeks of potential income for vendors operating at survival level, creating a vicious cycle that keeps Black entrepreneurs trapped in poverty while enriching municipal coffers.
Priorities Reveal Colonial Mindset
While homeless individuals have occupied Che Guevara Road for five months, creating genuine safety hazards and even robbing motorists in viral incidents, Metro Police resources are deployed against vendors selling goods to support their families.
"The whoonga addicts terrorise people by robbing and stealing. Those are the people the Metro Police should show enthusiasm to fight, not us. We are just putting food on the table for our families," Ngcobo explained, highlighting the moral bankruptcy of current enforcement priorities.
Systemic Exclusion by Design
The permit system itself represents institutional racism, designed to exclude Black entrepreneurs from formal economic participation. When the apartheid government created these regulatory barriers, they were tools of economic oppression, and their enforcement today continues that legacy.
Colonel Zungu's defence that "street vendors know well that they need permits to trade" ignores the systemic barriers that prevent Black South Africans from accessing these permits, from bureaucratic obstacles to prohibitive costs.
Fighting Back Against Economic Colonialism
Despite Zungu's contradictory claims about "winning" the battle to "clean Durban's streets," the reality is clear: Metro Police are winning their war against Black economic empowerment while losing the fight against actual crime.
This selective enforcement represents nothing less than economic warfare against Black communities, using the law as a weapon to maintain white economic dominance through different means than apartheid, but with similar results.
The vendors' resistance against this persecution represents a continuation of the liberation struggle, fighting for the right to economic participation that was promised but never delivered by our democracy.