BUSINESS OWNERS VOLUNTARILY CLOSE EARLY

PIGG’S PEAK – It appears like it did not take long for Pigg’s Peak business owners and vendors alike to heed to the call to close shops.
On Wednesday, many businesses closed long before police officers began to move from shop to shop requesting that they close.

Since the beginning of the partial lockdown, police officers, using a megaphone, had been announcing that business operators should lock up and leave. Some of the business owners, however, felt the police were making their own laws. Many businesses closed between 3pm and 4pm.

Andile Maseko, one of the business owners, said he had not closed by 5pm but said the cold weather may have contributed to people closing early.
Maseko also said one of the other factors was transport as many people used public vehicles to get to their homes.

He said before the partial lockdown, many people remained around town because they could still get transport to their homes at 6pm.
Business owners who spoke on condition of anonymity also said the control of public transport contributed to business owners closing early.
Meanwhile, police officers also continued patrolling Buhleni and controlled the movement of traffic in and out of the town. Sandile Maziya, when reached for comment, said police officers, warders and soldiers were in the town to enforce social distancing.

Maziya is a member of a committee tasked with overseeing the transition of Buhleni into a fully-fledged town by the year 2022.
He said the law enforcers were also ensuring that business owners were compliant in providing sanitisers.

On another note, transport operators are of the view that the partial lockdown will likely destroy their businesses. On Wednesday, public transport vehicles were not allowed to park at the bus rank while waiting for 3pm at which time they were allowed to transport commuters.

Instead, the drivers were ordered to park their vehicles far from the town centre and that there should be no one loitering at the bus rank.

Transport

One of the drivers of the kombis said some of the public transport operators had decided to park their vehicles for the week. “How much can you make in a week transporting very few people?” he asked.
The driver said running the transport business was very expensive, adding that the money they charged commuters was not just for petrol but for vehicle maintenance.

He said the partial lockdown had made it difficult for them to generate income. Others also expressed concern that the number of people was decreasing each day. They said when the partial lockdown started, a lot of people did not take it seriously and they continued loitering in the town centre.

This, however, was quickly changing as there were few people now.
Transport operators said should the partial lockdown continue for longer, they may not be able to continue providing the service.
In the major supermarkets, some of the owners also expressed concern that there were few people there.
“We are not that busy,” said an owner of one of the supermarkets.

She highlighted that the reason they appeared busy was that the queues were moving slowly due to the rule that only 20 people were allowed inside the shops.
Vendors who normally sold items along various pavements expressed concern that they did not have customers as many of their clients could not make it to town.

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