Masvingo City Council yesterday vowed to comply with government’s directive to drive out all illegal vendors operating in the central business district despite fierce resistance by vendors’ associations.
BY HAZVINEI MWANAKA
Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo early this month ordered street vendors to relocate to designated sites by tomorrow failure of which they will be forcibly ejected.
Council’s director of housing, Levison Nzvura, told vendors at a meeting at Town Hall that the local authority was preparing alternative vending sites.
“So far we have registered around 500 people who need vending sites and we are working together with residents’ associations and different stakeholders,” he said.
“Preparations at our designated place like toilets and fences are progressing as we want the place to accommodate 600 people, but we can add up if it fails to accommodate all of them.”
Nzvura added: “People selling in the CBD, their time is up. June 26 is the deadline so we are not supposed to have vendors in town, we gave them time to register and they should comply.”
He said tomorrow council would dispatch its teams to clear dirt left behind by vendors to bring sanity to the streets Masvingo mayor Hubert Fidze said the move was meant to bring order in the city.
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However, Masvingo Residents’ Trust co-ordinator Prosper Tiringindi accused council of sending all vendors to Chitima market instead of allocating them different sites.
“There is need of various sites rather than accommodating vendors at one place which is not enough to accommodate the ones who are already there.
It is better to create other alternatives,” he said.
Fruit and Vegetables Association chairperson at Chitima market, Tarisai Katini, said the site was not able to accommodate even 200 people.
