ANGRY foreign shop owners protested against corrupt police officers on Friday, 13 January.
Scores of foreign businesspeople gathered outside the Sedibeng Police Cluster offices in the Vaal to voice their concerns over corrupt police officers who are allegedly robbing them at their shops.
Nahom Gidey of the Vereeniging for Change movement, representing business owners and informal traders, told Daily Sun: “We are fighting crime against police officers who are the looters at foreign shops.”
Gidey said when police get to their shops, they go straight to the cash register and cigarettes, also demanding airtime and cold drinks. “If we try to refuse, we get assaulted and taken into a police vehicle so that they get all the cash in the shop without being disturbed,” said Gidey.
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The foreigners started by cleaning the Vereeniging CBD and said every week they were going to close their shops for an hour to clean the area. They marched to the Sedibeng Police Cluster offices to hand over the memorandum and told police that they were giving them seven days to respond.
DA ward councillor Prudence Hlanyane said her office has been getting many complaints from foreign businessmen about police who are robbing their shops without search warrants. She accompanied them to the police cluster on Friday.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jaco Landman received the memorandum. He said he taking the memorandum to management and he’ll contact the marchers to set up a meeting.
