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Lovemore Meya Herald Correspondent
CHITUNGWIZA vendors have been slow to heed the municipality’s call to register in order to be compliant with the local authority’s by-laws. The municipality, through the acting town clerk, Ms Charity Maunga, announced last Friday that all vendors needed to be registered and allocated proper vending sites.

This follows an ultimatum by Local Government, Rural Development and National Housing Minister Saviour Kasukuwere to delegates at a joint meeting of provincial and district administrators, chief executive officers, town clerks and secretaries in Harare on Friday to either shape up or ship out. Ms Maunga said although vendors were complying, the process is however, frustratingly slow.

“The registration is still low considering that we called upon vendors to register last Friday as we were trying to put our logistics together. Today (Monday) is our first full day and Seke South has registered, and they are still trickling in. However, I do believe that it is still early for us to have favourable numbers, but they are complying. This is aimed at bringing sanity in the town and we are following on Harare as we feel that we are part of the metropolitan province,” said Ms Maunga.

Vendors expressed mixed feelings. According to Madzibaba Luke, who trades at Makoni Shopping Centre, the idea to register them was good, “but our worry is that are these designated sites going to be close to our customers”.

“This might be a way of trying to move us from the places we operate from and replace us with other people. What we want is for them to deploy their team to come and register us at our vending stalls,” he said.

Ms Chikoto, a vegetable vendor, was upbeat about the new initiative.

“What council is planning is good as long as the sites are close to the market, because if people are located to faraway places, it will still lead to illegal vending. We all want to do business in a clean environment, which is organised and we recommend that council should also have proper infrastructure.”

Chitungwiza Residents Trust acting director Ms Alice Kuvheya said: “Registering of vendors is a good initiative since council promised to construct legal vending stalls. This will enable them to conduct their business without fear of getting arrested by council police.

“We always encourage council to engage residents and vendors for a dialogue, where the officials can actually hear their concerns as well.”