www.mobserver.co.za<\/b> has received a barrage of complaints from business owners since level 4 lockdown restrictions were announced, saying that the SAPS is forcing businesses allowed to operate on level 4 to close, tearing up their permits and threatening them with arrest.<\/p>\n
According to the owner of Funky Toys & Things, she obtained permission from a police captain to reopen her business by only allowing the sale of essential goods like blankets, heaters and fuel-fired stoves.<\/p>\n
During an inspection by the traffic department on Friday, she was also given the go-ahead after she barricaded her non-essential goods.<\/p>\n
Later she was, however, forced to close by the police, who said that she needed a municipal permit to trade, with the municipality strongly disagreeing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Confusion over which businesses are allowed to operate, and with which permits, has resulted in the serious conflict between the municipality and local police, with the SAPS even threatening to arrest Mayor Bagudi Tolo over the issuing of essential service permits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8164,"featured_media":76289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Gerhard Rheeder","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[24807,24808,24809,10010,12898,24805,24804,24806,10333],"class_list":["post-123496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines","tag-application-for-essential-services-permits","tag-confusion-over-issue-of-permits-leads-to-conflict-between-saps-and-steve-tshwete-municipality","tag-confusion-over-permits","tag-local-news","tag-middelburg-news","tag-municipal-issue-of-essential-services-permits","tag-police-threatens-to-arrest-mayor-over-issue-of-permits","tag-steve-thswete-local-municipality","tag-trusted-news"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"tag_labels":["application for essential services permits","confusion over issue of permits leads to conflict between saps and steve tshwete municipality","confusion over permits","local news","middelburg news","municipal issue of essential services permits","police threatens to arrest mayor over issue of permits","steve thswete local municipality","trusted news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}