The Sunday Mail
GOVERNMENT has launched an ambitious bid to boost revenue inflows, particularly from vendors operating in and around Harare’s central business district, by designating special trading sites where daily taxes will be collected.
The new measure is forecast to net more than US$45 000 daily.
Authorities in Harare have designated nine vending sites that can accommodate up to 1 000 vendors.
Six of the sites have been approved, while the other three are at various stages of confirmation.
The approved vending points are Fourth Street Market (with capacity for 234 vendors), Charge Office (40 traders), Speke/Cameron Street (20 market stalls), Park Street (360 flea market traders), Market Square (222 traders) and Rezende Street/Kenneth Kaunda (54 vendors).
Three other sites — Speke and Cameron opposite Cleveland House, Fourth Street Parking Lot and the Charge Office Flea Market — are under “active consideration”.
Stall holders will be allowed to sell fruit and vegetables, airtime, newspapers, dried foods and clothes there.
More vending sites are being erected around Harare to widen the revenue net for both Government and council.
The Harare City Council says the initiative is meant to balance maintaining aesthetical values, while also regularising vendors’ operations.
“Harare City Council, in conjunction with the relevant arms of Government, has designated nine vending sites in the central business district and is in the process of approving additional points to cater for the growing informal market.
“Individual flea market operators will pay US$2 daily for trading space, while fruit and vegetable traders and other vendors selling goods like dried foods, airtime and newspapers will pay US$1 daily.
“They will trade in demarcated areas as a way of maintaining order and beauty of the city environment. Encroachments into undesignated areas will be dealt with in accordance with the law,” said the city in e-mailed responses to questions from this paper.
Registration of vendors is ongoing at the vending sites and successful applicants are being allocated a personal registration number and revenue officers would collect vending fees.
“Building material vendors trading on road sides are also expected to adhere to the new guidelines. Goods from unregistered traders will be confiscated, while those illegally trading from vehicles will have their vehicles towed away.
“Council revenue officers will be stationed at all the designated vending sites to collect vending fees on a daily basis. The revenue officers will be distinctly identifiable.
“Identification and approval of vending sites in residential suburbs and industrial areas and commercial centres has also begun.
“This initiative is a realisation of the critical role played by the informal sector in the national economy. Designating and approving convenient vending sites is expected to not only increase revenue collection by council, but also bring sanity and orderliness in the city. Additional revenue will help council to build more vending sites,” said the city.
It could not be established if the new daily tax will substitute hawkers’ licences.
Vending is guided by the Hawkers and Street Vendors by-laws of 1978 encapsulated in the Urban Councils Act (Chapter 29:15) of 1995.
Hawkers’ licences, pegged at US$140 annually, were considered punitive and most traders operate without them.
Most informal traders have been driven to Harare’s CBD mainly by the economics of a big market, as many activities are concentrated within the capital city.
Government estimates suggest that there could be more than US$7 billion circulating in the informal economy — about the size of Zimbabwe’s official GDP even as the country battles a cash squeeze.
Zimra missed its revenue target for the first half of the year to June by one percent, with the tax collector realising US$1,72 billion against a target of US$1,74 billion.
However, some vendors consider daily taxes inconvenient and would prefer monthly payments.
Conversely, city authorities contend that a once-off payment for the month or for a quarter will inconvenience those that do not wish to trade every day.
“The idea is okay, but I feel that they could have started by coming up with many stalls so that we can all be catered for. We are interested in regularising our operations because this is our source of survival; so council can call us for a meeting and we exchange ideas on the way forward.
“If I could I would tell them that in order to avoid concentration of vendors on a small area.
“Council officials can visit every vendor in the morning to collect the US$1 or US$2 that they have gazetted as the trading fee from where we are operating.
“We will pay or they can tell us to just pass through Town House in the morning and pay before we get to our respective selling points,” said Mr Samuel Danda, a vendor.
Global debate on street vending suggests vendors compete unfairly against off-street establishments because they do not incur registration and taxation costs as well as insurance, rent and utility payments.
The argument adds that by creating “disloyal competition”, street vendors take business away from off-street establishments and threaten their viability.
This school of thought urges local governments to “formalise” street vendors by relocating them to off-street premises where they would be expected to register, pay taxes and rent or own their workplace.
