Planning the Road Ahead

GLF COLUMN The GLF calls for liquor traders to unite in overcoming their difficulties PLANNING THE ROAD AHEAD

We open the winter season with the sad news of the passing of stalwart and legend Simon “Bra Si” Moswetsa, who was a founding member of the South African Tavern Association (SATA) and Gauteng Liquor Forum (GLF) and who also acted as its Treasurer. He was a pioneer in stokvels around Kathorus and the owner of Sefateng Inn, a business that helped a lot of shebeens around Kathorus by giving them stock to sell.

Even stokvels used to take stock from Bra Si, who was a founder member of several stokvels, including Jabula Lova, Jika Jika, Generations, Heineken and many more. He held an executive position in FABCOS and also held the chairmanship of the Gauteng Province branch. He was also a member of GAULIBA and also held the chairmanship of their Katlehong branch. In addition, he was the liaison person between Katlehong Police and its traders. He is survived by his two children and two grandchildren. The memorial service was held at Mosikile Hall on 6 April and he was laid to rest on 9 April 2017. His funeral was well attended by family members, friends, burial societies, liquor traders and stokvel members. May his soul rest in peace. The next bad news for April 2017 was the raids conducted against liquor traders around Ekurhuleni. The raids were against legal permit holders and the two most affected by these raids were traders from Windmill Park, Mr. Muziwakhe Dan Khumalo and Cleopatra Gili, whose confiscated liquor stock amounted to approximately R1,000,000. During the raids, the police demanded consent use and fire extinguisher certificates. The affected areas were Daveyton, Reiger Park, Dawnpark, Villa Lisa and Benoni. As a result, we called a meeting of traders in Reiger Park on 19 April 2017 with the support of NAFCOC Ekurhuleni and the endorsement of the National NAFCOC President, Mr. Churchill Mrasi. The meeting was well attended and traders asked some questions which led to lengthy discussions. Some critical decision were taken and we are waiting for the feedback of a meeting between the leadership of liquor traders, the Liquor Board and Lieutenant-Colonel Rautenbach. At the meeting, we discovered that in these affected areas, members don’t belong to our associations or attend association and police station meetings. These members belong to different associations, which are situated far away from them, meaning that communication takes place at a distance. We urge traders to attend association and police station meetings. Let’s invite the Liquor Board to our meetings for clarification on issues we don’t understand in our trade.

We had also had an important meeting with the leadership for traders, the office of the MEC for Economic Development, and the Liquor Board. On the agenda were the new tariffs, the police raids, and the report back on the Yeoville Rate Payers court case. The following points were discussed: On the new tariffs, the liquor traders put on the table their concerns that the Liquor Board hadn’t followed the right procedure when implementing the increase and that they didn’t call the traders for a public meeting to inform them about the increase.

As a liquor forum, we had made submissions, but they didn’t call us to discuss them or the increase. We put it on the table that we don’t mind a gradual increment as everything has increased, including beer, but we are against the 100% increase.

The tariff increment started increasing from R 100 a year to R 2 500 and now it’s R 5 000. We didn’t complain before, so we think the Liquor Board is taking advantage of that. Now we are waiting for a response from the Department of Economic Development as the MEC was not present.