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Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
BEITBRIDGE Town Council is set to construct two modern flea markets to enhance the activities of small to medium traders in the border town.

The infrastructure will be built at Mashavire Business Centre at a designated area close to the Zimbabwean border side.

Beitbridge is one of the busiest border towns in Zimbabwe, offering wide opportunities for SMEs, Beitbridge Town Council secretary Loud Ramakgapola said.

He told Business Chronicle that construction of the flea market at Mashavire Business Centre has started.

“We’ve started work on building modern flea markets that are up to standard. Construction of the Mashavire flea market has started and we’re looking at 40 to 50 vendors having marketing stalls. The flea markets, though modern, aren’t very expensive,” he said.

At present, Ramakgapola said, the council has designated certain areas for vendors to conduct their business and through respective vendor committees the local authority is collecting revenue.

“Vendors here also have committees and through the committees we collect a dollar each per day from those conducting their business from designated sites,” he said.

The town secretary also said the council enjoys cordial relations with the vendors and the informal traders, although at times there are clashes.

“I can say we enjoy cordial relations with the vendors and informal traders. However, once in a while we’ve challenges with them. For instance, at times we’ve problems with some vendors selling cooked chicken and beer in open places,” he said.

Ramakgapola said going forward, the council’s security department would be operating 24 hours to deal with illicit activities by some unscrupulous vendors and informal traders.

“Going forward, we need our security department to be a 24-hour operation because most of the illicit dealings by some of the vendors are done at night.

“During the day some of the unscrupulous traders aren’t there, but by the time we knock off around 5PM, that’s when they surface knowing that council police have knocked off. Our staff is inadequate to run a 24 hour operation.”

The local authority has 40 security personnel.

Some of the vendors at Mashavire Business Centre welcomed the development of a new modern flea market.

They said the move by the Beitbridge Town Council shows that the local authority is recognising the role they are playing in economic development.

“We really welcome the move that the council has taken as far as the construction of a new flea market. It shows that they (council) recognise our role,” said Portia Tlou.

Another vendor, Samuel Makhado, said the council should ensure that more land for flea market operations is availed so that a number of the traders in the town have stalls.

“We appreciate the stance that council has taken. However, we feel that the new flea market here (Mashavire Business Centre) can’t accommodate all of us here so, there’s need for council to avail more land,” he said.

Sympathy Molalo, another vendor, also echoed similar sentiments as Makhado.

Most vendors are selling a variety of agricultural products, clothes and electrical gadgets.