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• They’re not a problem: Minister

• Harare ultimatum stands

Bulisile Mguni in Bulawayo, Tendai Mugabe and Tafadzwa Ndlovu in Harare
SMALL to Medium Enterprises and Cooperative Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni has said no action will be taken against street vendors in Bulawayo but the directive for their counterparts in Harare to leave stands.

This comes at a time when the city’s mayor councillor Martin Moyo said police would not be involved in dealing with vendors trading on undesignated sites as council wants the deadline to remove those trading at undesignated areas to be extended by another month.

Minister Nyoni told The Chronicle that vendors in Bulawayo are safe as they were not a problem like in Harare.

“Bulawayo vendors aren’t giving us a problem like those in Harare. In Bulawayo, vendors aren’t blocking the streets like those in Harare who you find in every street. Bulawayo vendors have actually been complying with local authorities and they weren’t giving them a hard time,” said Minister Nyoni.

“For them to be evicted tomorrow (yesterday) it’s not viable, unless Minister (of Local Government, Ignatius) Chombo decides. My job is to train vendors in doing their job and Bulawayo vendors are doing that very well.”

Minister Chombo could not be reached for comment.

However, Clr Moyo said they will not be removing vendors from the streets and they would not enlist the services of the police to do so. The deadline for street vendors to leave was yesterday.

Clr Moyo said no response has been received yet on the request to extend the vendors deadline.

“We don’t want a war with the vendors,” said the mayor.

Vendors who spoke to The Chronicle yesterday vowed that they’ll not heed the government’s directive even if a decision to remove them is implemented.

“I’ll only leave this place on condition that the council gives us proper sites to accommodate us. These places must have adequate sanitary facilities that’ll be manned by council officers because failure to do that will lead to the outbreak of some diseases,” said Simbarashe Ruzengwe.

Another vendor, Simayedwa Sibanda said some of the proposed sites did not make business sense.

“The council can’t put us in areas that are near Amazulu Stadium. Who’ll really come and buy from us when we’re in the periphery of town? This will make us lose our customers because no normal person would walk to Amazulu just to buy a banana for R1,” said Sibanda.

“I’ll continue to play cat and mouse with the municipal officers because this is where the money is in town.”

In Harare, the deadline by which vendors were expected to move out of the Central Business District to designated selling points expired yesterday with no sign that the traders were willing to leave.

This comes as the City of Harare struggled to register vendors at the new selling points yesterday as most of them were reluctant to do so.

As of yesterday, the City of Harare had registered only 500 vendors out of an estimated 20,000, indicating that the majority of them wanted to stay put in the CBD.

A survey by our Harare Bureau yesterday showed that the issue of vendors had been hijacked by some political opportunists who were dreaming of fomenting anarchy as they were inciting the vendors to ignore the government directive.

However, some vendor associations yesterday said they were willing to move to the designated selling points while others were adamant that they would only move after the government offers alternative employment and proper vending facilities.

This is despite a collective assurance made by vendor associations to Minister Nyoni this week that they would comply.

She said she met with 16 vendor unions who assured her that they were willing to move to designated points.

“They told me that they were going to help their members to move out except for one or two unions who are now politicising the issue. But as for the other unions, I think there’s willingness to comply,” she said.

Minister Nyoni said the onus was now on the vendors unions’ leadership to ensure that their members moved to designated points.

Vendor unions expressed varying views over the directive.

Grassroots Empowerment Fleamarkets and Vendors Trust chairman Alexio Mudzengerere said: “Our people started to move to designated sites today (yesterday). We’re happy to bring sanity and orderliness in the CBD and we’re complying with the government directive.”

He said those resisting the relocation had sinister motives and were hiring people from high density suburbs to masquerade as vendors in the CBD.

Zimbabwe Home Industries Association president Onismo Gore, said they had complied with the government directive.

“We’re complying and our members are already moving to points designated to them by the council,” he said.

However, some unions were singing a different tune saying logistical issues involved in their relocation required a year to complete. They accused the council of registering vendors on a partisan basis adding that the government should first create decent vending zones and come up with a taxing regime beneficial to the State and vendors as well.

National director of the National Vendors’ Union of Zimbabwe Samuel Wadzai said: “We feel that there are certain processes that should be dealt with before the relocation, like the issue of registration should be inclusive.”

“There are cash barons who are currently collecting money from vendors and we feel that should be addressed first. I think we need a year to put proper structures and address all the concerns that we have before the relocation is effected.”

He said they were not expecting running battles with the police because the High Court said there was no need for the involvement of security apparatus in the issue of vendors.

Director of the Zimbabwe Informal Sector’s Organisation Promise Mkwananzi, called for a meeting with Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo to work on a complete framework that addressed the issue of vendors and their plight.

“Ziso and other vendors’ associations are keen to meet and dialogue with your ministry about the issues on the table and to assist your ministry to devise an amicable and sustainable solution to the issue of vendors in the shortest (but reasonable) possible time,” reads part of the letter written by Mkwananzi to Minister Chombo.

He said the use of force against vendors would further alienate the country from the international community and the much needed foreign direct investment.

In a statement yesterday, City of Harare principal communications officer Michael Chideme said: “By 1400hrs (yesterday) today we had registered 500 vendors at all our centres.

“By close of business we still had long queues at the major centres.

The exercise continues throughout the weekend and into next week . . . All members of the informal sector should be warned that there’s no going back on the relocation. Very soon our enforcement teams would be deployed to ensure total compliance.”