Bulawayo mayor Martin Moyo has said the council would not be able to meet the Friday June 26 government deadline for vendors operating in undesignated areas within the central business district to vacate.
MTHANDAZO NYONI
Moyo said vendors should stay put as the council was doing everything within its mandate to address the contentious vending issue. He, however, said they should apply for vending licences before June 26.
Council officials held a crunch stakeholders’ meeting with vendors in the city yesterday to discuss the issue of informal trading and moving sellers to designated sites.
The meeting was attended by nearly 200 vendors and council officials.
The government imposed a June 26 deadline for all vendors in the country’s central business districts to move back to sites previously identified and new ones to be designated by various local authorities. Failure to adhere would lead to arrest.
Moyo said the council was working tirelessly to make sure that the issue of informal trading was addressed fairly and amicably.
“This meeting is a response to the government’s ultimatum for 26 June that all illegal vendors should be moved to designated areas. We want to know how best we could tackle the issue.
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We know that the situation on the ground is bad because industries have been turned into churches and workers into vendors to earn a living. Therefore, we as a council, support your rights to make a living for your families,” Moyo said amid applause from vendors.
“That should happen because if not, your children will die.
We will do whatever within our means to address the issue. To date, about 1 975 people have applied for vending licences and we are still on the process of allocating them bays,” he said. “We will make sure that everyone is given a proper place as required by the government. The process, however, will take time.
We want to regularise and legalise your activities by giving you licences and places where you would operate from. We want to do that diligently and respectfully so that we do not hurt anyone,” he added.
Gift Banda, deputy mayor, said vendors should practice cleanliness so that they “do not attract attention from outside”.
However, vendors pressed Moyo and Banda further to be precise on what would happen after the deadline since they had not been allocated proper places. Moyo responded by saying “if they beat you they would be beating us too”.
Vendors accused council authorities of being corrupt as some of them were said to be leasing bays at a higher price. They demanded transparency on the allocation of bays.
Moyo promised to look into the matter.
The council recently ordered vendors to immediately vacate “illegal trading points” or face arrest and prosecution for violating the city’s by-laws.
Bulawayo streets, like others across the country, are crowded with vendors who have vowed to stay put at trading places despite several threats by local authorities to remove them and decongest pavements.
Early this month, the council said all vendors trading at undesignated sites in contravention of council by-laws should stop their activities forthwith.
Councillors recently noted that the issue of vendors had been politicised, with an unnamed political party threatening to rally behind vendors and assist them in resisting forced relocation.
