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Vendors sell fruits and vegetables on pavements in defiance of a Government order to relocate to designated sites

Andrew Muvishi and Virginia Kashiri
Illegal vendors who had heeded the call by Government to stay away from the streets on Monday, began trooping back into the Harare central business district (CBD) yesterday.

The vendors could be seen in undesignated areas and pavements, as authorities continue to be hard-pressed to enforce Government’s directive. Last Friday, Government gave vendors and pirate taxi operators a 48-hour ultimatum to vacate the streets, which expired midnight on Sunday. On Monday, many illegal vendors, who often block pavements in the CBD, were conspicuous by their absence.

Harare Informal Traders’ Association chairperson Mr Arthur Muromba yesterday blamed Harare City Council for failing to provide proper and decent vending sites.

“It is because council has failed since 2014 to identify, designate and develop more vending sites to contain the influx of vendors in the streets,” he said. The city’s corporate communications manager Mr Michael Chideme said the relocation of vendors was not an event, but a process.

“We are fully seized with the issue and it is a matter of days before the city resembles what we actually want it to be. Together we can have a clean Harare,” he said. CBZ Bank is understood to be working with council to build a market at Coca-Cola (Graniteside) along Seke Road, where vendors will be allocated stalls to sell their wares.

The CBD has gradually become a playing ground for vendors selling second-hand clothes, vegetables and roasted mealie cobs. Illegal money changers have also found a home in the CBD of Harare. And they are adamant that they will continue occupying the streets.

“We resist the ultimatum issued by Government in the sense that we have nowhere to go; we earn a living from vending,” said a vendor who sells cellphones and accessories along Cameroon Street.

Tafadzwa Machokoto, who also sells trinkets along Jason Moyo Street, said most vendors were likely to return as they practically lived off the streets. Government says the renewed effort to enforce the city by-laws is not a one-day operation as a task force had been set up to monitor the exercise. The task force would only be disbanded when order is restored.