THABO Gallens, pictured, remembers a time when there were up to 14 shops run by locals in his hometown of Kagiso, west of Johannesburg.

Then in the early 1990s, the shops that served the local community with basic goods, disappeared one after the other.

This left residents with no choice but to travel far to buy basic goods.

But at the turn of the millennium, foreign nationals arrived in the township.

With pockets full of money, they bought old buildings and houses and rented garages and converted them into spaza shops.

Today, almost every street in Kagiso has a corner shop.

Last week, the shops in Kagiso owned by these foreign nationals were looted.

"Today a girl walked 3km just to buy sanitary pads from my neighbour, whose shop was lucky to be operating," said Gallens, who is a teacher and a property agent.

Gallens believes it is lack of business acumen that led to the demise of local business, not foreigners.

His house is next to a garage that he once owned together with a group of local investors.

Their business venture later flopped because of money squabbles and maladministration.

The garage building was abandoned for more than a year before an Indian businessman bought it and other houses nearby to build a successful business.

"I can count up to 14 shops that I supported growing up in this neighbourhood, but they all just vanished," said Gallens.

He warned that it will be only a matter of time before shisa nyamas and funeral parlours suffer the same fate as spaza shops.

"Foreigners work together and have a flair for business. It's only a matter of time before they take shisa nyamas and [funeral] parlours away from us if we don't get our act together," warned Gallens.

Somali Community Board (SCM) national secretary Abbirizak Osman said venturing into other types of businesses was not out of reach for foreigners.

He said SCM was currently partnering with the ministry of small business development to work together with local business owners.

"South Africans must learn to compete with other nationals and not run away from their own businesses," Osman said.

"Hence now we want to create a forum with the locals to find ways of working together. There is nothing stopping us from owning funeral parlours. The forum will help us learn from each other."

sifilel@sowetan.co.za

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