GOVERNMENT has given vendors a seven day ultimatum to vacate Harare’s central business district to designated vending sites in a bid to restore order.
Local government, national housing and urban development minister, Ignatius Chombo, gave the ultimatum at a press conference on Monday attended by several vendors associations and the leadership of several local authorities across the country.
Chombo ordered all urban councils to implement the directive, saying failure to do so will see government launching a massive crackdown on them.
“By Monday next week (June 8) everyone should be off the streets,” said Chombo. He said his ministry was in talk with the ministry of Home Affair who will dispatch the police to help them restore order.
He said vendor organisations and the ministry of Small to Medium Enterprises and co-operative developments should join his ministry by encouraging their members to co-operate as they endeavour to maintain standards and rid themselves of the “anarchy that currently prevails”.
Chombo said the time for illegal vending was over and vowed that his ministry would work hand-in-glove with the city council to remove all “illegal vendors”.
He said the vendors should relocate to designated sites which will cost US$1 per day from the initial US$3.
Despite earlier threats by urban local authorities to remove vendors from central business districts as a way of decongesting and cleaning up the country’s increasingly dirty towns especially the capital city Harare street traders say they will stay put in the areas where they are currently operating from.
National Vendors Union of Zimbabwe (Navuz) chairperson, Stan Zvorwadza, is on record saying his members had “resolved” that they would not move and that they in fact needed to be protected by the law.
The union, which claims to have six million vendors under its umbrella nationwide, and more than 100 000 members in Harare alone a figure that includes many disabled people said it was sad that authorities were taking long to accept that Zimbabwe was now a “vendor nation” out of necessity.
He said he was also concerned about the apparent reneging by cities on the planning authority duties bestowed on local authorities.
“There is far too much disorder in the development of housing estates within your boundaries and you appear to have adopted the role of spectator,” said Chombo.
“May I remind you that the responsibility for the spatial planning has been decentralised to you and this does not mean approving plans alone. You are expected to oversee the implementation of the standards set by yourselves and central government as well as to vigorously pursue the task of development control,” he said.
One Reply to “Chombo Orders Vendors Off Streets”
Comments are closed.
my advice to zanu pf. 1. These vendors are legitimately working, not stealing. 2. Most are women in desperate poverty trying to scrape a few dollars a day to feed themselves, unemployed husbands and children. 3. If you don’t want them on the streets create thousands of vendor stalls near bus stops and city centers [we are African, not European in city design]. 4. These vendors are a political asset. I advise you to use their community power if you want to turn the cities to Zanu pf. If you harass them they will be an anti zanu force and will certainly embarass you with demonstrations, mob violence etc…. as they do in Bulawayo. 5 you may just drive them to desperation. Remember 2008 when the women vendors shook the nation with demonstrations, shop invasions etc and armoured cars had to go onto the streets? Treat them with justice. Dont force them to use anarchy as a weapon to eat.