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Canditar Chapanduka, Chronicle Reporter

VENDORS in Bulawayo yesterday started registering and getting licences from the city council for them to start operating from designated sites around the city.

Registration was being done at the City of Bulawayo Vending Offices on a day that the local authority had wanted to clear the streets of illegal activities. Council’s operation was however suspended pending consultations with the security sector.

Vendors who went to register were responding to council’s directive for traders to operate from designated sites.

Council has vending bays along Masotsha Ndlovu adjacent to Highlanders Sports Club and has designated some areas in residential suburbs for informal traders.

Earlier this week, Bulawayo town clerk Mr Christopher Dube issued a statement encouraging people that they must abide by the city’s by-laws.

“The City encourages trading at designated sites in terms of the Municipal Laws. This fosters peace, cleanliness, and control of all informal trading activities through the associations which have Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with the city. Offenders will be prosecuted,” said the town clerk.

Vendors said they were eager to be licensed so that they can operate from authorised vending bays to avoid running battles with municipal police, some of which prove costly as they lose their goods.

The move comes at a time when council has announced that the Basch Street Bus Terminus, popularly known as Egodini, will be opened in mid-February this year for some informal traders and transporters as construction progresses.

Council says the contractor Terracotta Trading Private Limited (TTPL) won a tender for the project in 2015 recently disclosed that over 500 bays are almost complete.

A vendor who registered yesterday, Ms Jesca Moyo said she was happy at the move that the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) took because it has helped them to finally get licences.

Bulawayo City Council

She said she had been operating in the city centre but had paid an equivalent of US$10 in local currency to be licensed and was now awaiting to be allocated a vending bay.

 “It was painful that sometimes when I ran away from the BCC police, I lost some of my stuff because I couldn’t handle all of it with care due to the rush that I will be in so that by the time they arrive I would have long gone with my stuff in fear of loss. Today I am now liberated because I’m going to trade at an authorised place,” she said.

Another vendor Mr Tatenda Hove said he will be trying to look for money to fend for his family while operating from the street but had decided to be licensed to operate legally.

 “I was selling groceries along Six Avenue and where I was operating from was not an authorised site as we were closing the road even for the passersby by the pavements. The city should be clean and have order therefore I applaud the BCC for conducting the exercise. So from today, I will operate at a legal site as a registered vendor with a licence,” he said.–@NomqheleC