By Zachary Gava
Harare, (New Ziana) — Government, the Harare City Council and vendors’ associations have agreed on a peaceful, consultative approach to restore order in the capital’s central business district (CBD), where illegal vending and the occupation of pavements have increasingly disrupted pedestrian and vehicular movement.
The agreement was reached on Tuesday when Minister of Local Government and Public Works Daniel Garwe met Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume, council officials and representatives of vendors’ associations to map a way forward following Government’s ultimatum for vendors operating illegally in the CBD to move to designated areas.
Rather than immediately resorting to enforcement, the three parties agreed to work together to identify designated vending areas and persuade traders to relocate, with joint inspections of the streets beginning on Wednesday.
“We are not here to ridicule each other but to map out the best way forward,” Minister Garwe told journalists after the meeting.
“We will tomorrow, on Wednesday, move through designated streets as the Ministry of Local Government, the city council and vendors’ representatives, ensuring that vendors are operating in designated areas.”
Garwe said the exercise would also focus on educating vendors about the public health dangers associated with trading in undesignated areas, particularly where there are no adequate ablution and waste-disposal facilities.
“We will be educating and telling those operating in undesignated places how this can spread diseases such as cholera and dysentery as there would be no ablution facilities,” he said.
The minister also sought to dispel fears of a heavy-handed operation, saying Government, council and vendors were working together to resolve the problem.
“It is not a violent operation as some sections of the social media are already churning out lies. We, the three parties, are working hand in glove,” Garwe said.
The engagement comes as Government moves to bring greater order to the CBD, where vendors have increasingly spilled onto pavements and other undesignated spaces, creating congestion and raising concerns over sanitation and the city’s appearance.
Garwe said Government was also prepared to address concerns over the adequacy of designated vending infrastructure, including the number of available stalls.
“Many were saying maybe designated market stalls are not enough, but as Government we want to see how many so that we work with council and do something,” he said.
He added that the Ministry of Women Affairs was working with Government on the construction of additional stalls, while vendors who had been allocated operating spaces would be encouraged to provide feedback on challenges they encountered so that authorities could assist them.
The Government’s intervention will not, however, end with vending as authorities would next week turn their attention to public transport operators who were flouting designated routes and passenger pick-up and drop-off points.
Mayor Mafume said the council supported the peaceful and persuasive approach, arguing that the objective was to restore order while ensuring vendors could continue earning a living in a regulated environment.
“As you have heard, this is largely a persuasive operation, a peaceful operation,” Mafume said.
“We are simply moving face to face and illustrating the need for vendors to operate in an orderly manner, in designated places, and also to free up space for traffic, for pedestrians, for vehicles and the city to be able to breathe in terms of navigability and also the ease of doing business.”
Mafume said one of the major challenges facing the city was persuading vendors to use markets that had already been provided, despite some of the facilities having better infrastructure and amenities than the pavements and streets where traders preferred to operate.
He said the city had invested in facilities with amenities such as toilets, lighting, ventilation and basement space, but some vendors continued to prefer street trading.
The mayor attributed part of the resistance to established habits and perceptions about where traders could make the most money.
He said Harare could learn from other African cities such as Nairobi and Addis Ababa, where new markets were being developed as part of efforts to accommodate informal traders while improving urban order.
Mafume said enforcement would ultimately be necessary to ensure fairness to vendors who complied with the regulations.
“Those who have entered are complaining that if you don’t bring our friends who are still outside, then we will also go outside,” he said, describing the situation as a “chicken and egg” scenario.
He said authorities would therefore need to ensure that all vendors were treated consistently so that those complying with the regulations were not disadvantaged by others operating illegally.
Representatives of vendors’ associations welcomed the engagement, saying traders were prepared to comply with Government’s directive while also seeking to distinguish legitimate association members from people falsely claiming to represent them.
The vendors’ representative said registered members were capable of meeting the standards required at their workplaces and acknowledged that some traders were operating without paying the required licences.
“We are able to upgrade standards of our workplaces as required to keep them in shape,” the representative said.
“We agree that a lot of some vendors are not paying licences, but we spoke to the mayor that we are membership-driven and to be a member you pay and you are easily identifiable.
Many take advantage and act as if they are our members, but they are not in our databases.”
The vendors’ associations said they were law-abiding and would follow the minister’s directive while discussions and interventions to normalise operations continued.
“We are law abiding, therefore follow the Minister’s directive until things are back to normalised,” the representative said.
The three-way engagement is expected to provide a platform for Government, council and vendors to balance the need to restore order, cleanliness and public health in the CBD with the livelihoods of thousands of people who depend on informal trading.
The immediate focus will be Wednesday’s joint inspection and identification of designated vending spaces, with authorities expected to use the exercise to guide traders away from pavements and other prohibited areas.
New Ziana
