| Summary: | In the South African context, public participation is highly recognised by all the developmental policies, legislations and the Constitutiono of the Republic. However, in some developmental sectors the implementation of these policies and legislations is still questionable. Informal trading is one of the sectors where public participation is lacking, (Benit-Gbaffou, 2008). Through the protests in some cities including the City of Johannesburg, informal traders have voiced their dissatisfaction caused by the lack of public participation in decisions making processes.
The aim of this research is to find out how participatory was the process of informal trading by-laws amendment by the City of Johannesburg between 2008 and 2009. Bothe qualitative and quantitave tive research methods were used to extract and analyse the information needed to answer the research question. The use of both of these methods helped to strengthern the overall study by minimising the weaknesses associated with each methodas argued by Todd (1979) and Croswell (2009).
Informal traders, city officials and the informal traders’ organisations were used as the main participants for this research. Pointing out the challenges facing public participation in the process of informal trading by-laws formulation will assist and encourage the city officials to consider marginalised voices of the public; in decisions making processes.
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