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Tichaona Zindoga & Christopher Charamba
Is it not ironic that a place called Kumbudzi, the Granville Cemetery in Harare South, a gloomy place of quiet, deathly sorrow is preceded by a lively hustle and bustle of almost tumultuous proportions? Like a final gate to another world? People going to Granville Cemetery, or along the Simon Mazorodze Road towards Masvingo, are bound to be confronted by chaos at the Simon Mazorodze-High Glen-Chitungwiza roads roundabout.

Hundreds of people converge to do a multifarious array of activities from selling anything from flowers to mourners to food, airtime and mobile phone accessories while buses and motorists pick up passengers on the way to Beitbridge, Masvingo and other places.

On the sides of the road, illegal structures have popped up, many of them encroaching onto Simon Mazorodze Road which has not only become too small for the bubbling tumult but, at the section around the roundabout, taken a lot of battering from the human and vehicular traffic.

The apparent laxity in enforcing city by- laws in the past few months has largely contributed to the phenomenal growth in the number of illegal traders and structures. What is worse, among the sprawling structures is that there are no proper ablution facilities even in restaurants and bars that have been set up here.

It does not help matters either that on the southeast of Mbudzi roundabout is the Hopley settlement, an equally ungovernable and sprawling settlement that is dominated by illegal structures mainly built on unsanctioned land.

It is a dangerous situation – the genus of which people often mention in the same line as time bombs. All the same, a fight for survival is well afoot. Mrs Makaha runs a small restaurant for those around the complex selling meals such as sadza and relish and rice and beans.

“I’ve been running this kitchen for four months now but I run two other tuckshops on this same road. We started the tuckshop business three years ago but business has been slow so we decided to open the kitchen which has been better business,” she said.

According to Mrs Makaha, a lot of new business have been opening in and around the complex particularly on the side of the road and this has caused a lot of competition for them.

“There are now a lot of people here. For the kitchen it is good because a lot of people want to eat. However, we still face competition. There are six other places selling food very close to us. The competition is hurting our tuckshop business though because we are then forced to lower prices.”

Arguing the same point that competition is affecting their business, Batsirai Masunga said the rapid growth of businesses has changed the complex in recent months.

“I started operating here selling building materials and fixtures six years ago in 2009 and business was good. Now there are too many shops and its affecting us.

Another problem we face is that people do not have disposable income anymore and we do not sell to the upmarket but to small home owners around Hopley, for example, but they do not come anymore,” he said.

Operating an unlicensed shop, Mr Masunga said he cannot afford to get a licence from City Council.

“The licence requirements from council are impossible for us to get. We want licences and to be registered but council needs to be understanding with us and compromise.

“They want the yearly amount upfront but our business cannot raise that. We are small scale and would prefer to pay monthly. They also need for each shop to have a toilet, for example, but that is not possible. We do, however, have a communal toilet for the complex and that should suffice,” he said.

The owner of the complex, Mr Milton Charakupa of Charakupa Investments, said that there has been a mushrooming of businesses at the complex as well as vendors migrating to their site.

“We opened this complex in 1998 and have registered the business. The space accommodates roughly 70 units but these days people keep dividing up the space they rent so I can’t say how many business are here now.

“There are also vendors who have come here but because there are businesses which pay rent as well we allowed the vendors to operate outside close to the road but said that they could only sell products which were not being sold by people who rent units such as vegetables,” he said.

Mr Charakupa said each shop was responsible for sourcing their own licence from city council but that the requirements needed prevented most from doing so. A Mr Mukutaini is a proprietor of agricultural products who has been running his business at the complex since 2009.

“I opened this shop six year ago but rent the space I rent from Charakupa. I had to look for the material to build the unit for myself. There were already other shops that were here when I came but it was orderly and organised. Now this place is growing with a lot more people coming to do business here,” he said.

The shop is a small cubicle similar to many of the other stores in and around the complex owned by Charakupa Investments.

“My shop is not registered and I do not have a licence because I cannot not afford to do so. City council does not come here often though so we are not under pressure from them,” Mr Mukutaini added.

He also said they were facing problems from the growing businesses which were encroaching on to the road but were failing to deal with them.

“The growth of businesses has caused some people operate so close to the road but every time we try to instruct them they tell us where our wall ends and say that they are operating on city council property and will only answer to them.”

He added that they had plans to expand and fully develop the complex into a proper facility with plans already at the city council but needed financial support as well as developers to partner with.

“When we started this business we wanted it to be a spot for welders, mechanics and carpentry and have plans to develop it into a proper complex but this has been a difficult process so for now we will just operate as we have been doing.”

Selling cement from a corner shop Simukai Mataruse bemoaned the fact that a lot of new businesses had mushroomed encroaching on their space.

Several petty traders told The Herald that they were trying to eke a living out of it, even at the cost of order and the smooth flow of traffic.

“We have families to feed,” said an airtime vendor who only identified himself as Tonde.