The Sunday Mail
Entrepreneur . . . Mrs Abigail Makomva from Kuwadzana suburb, sewing women wear with a hand sewing machine along Julius Nyerere way in Harare
An underworld cartel is behind the illegal vendors operating in the Harare Central Business District, it has been established.
The cartel, which has also been hijacked by opportunistic opposition political elements, has also been pointed out as the one spearheading pockets of resistance to a recent ministerial order for illegal vendors to relocate to designated vending sites by today.
The Sunday Mail Extra has also established that the cartel neither champions the rights of the informal worker nor advances the agenda of the same, but is purely an income-generation initiative by political thugs and opportunists masquerading as champions of informal workers’ empowerment.
Over the past few months, illegal vendors have been abusing the First Lady, Dr Grace Mugabe’s name by misconstruing statements she made during Women’s Day commemorations early this year, when she warned police against harassing vendors, with a view to confiscate their wares.
It has since been established that the bogus informal worker groupings have adopted acronyms that associate with the First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe.
Vendor menace in the CBD
Names such as Queen of Grace ZimAsset Trust, Graceroots Empowerment Projects have sprouted as a deliberate attempt to universally gain acceptance and exempt themselves from scrutiny by authorities.
Some of the prime commercial areas in the CBD which is now under the armpit of these illegal vendor groupings include the areas adjacent to the Town House, extending to the Copacabana Terminus.
However, only the individuals running those consortium are the real beneficiaries of the CBD vending matrix, not the majority of informal traders.
“These guys are actually political thugs in disguise, the council is aware of their existence and they control most of the prime areas in the CBD whilst manipulating the name of the First Lady in a bid to scare off possible scrutiny,” said a senior council official who acted as our mole but refused to be named.
“Neither do they pay vending rentals to us. Vending licences are usually done on an individual basis, not for a group of people. That is rather absurd,” he said.
He said vending stalls in the city were run by the city council, not individuals operating vending sites on behalf of the city council.
He likened the situation to the chaos which rocked the city mass transit system recently. Back then, political malcontent bent on tarnishing the image of Zanu-PF called themselves ‘mandimbandimba’ and illegally operated several city bus termini, pocketing the proceeds of the plunder.
Some of these malcontent, who included former Zanu-PF Harare Province youth chairman Jim Kunaka, have since been expelled from the ruling party.
Harare City Council principal spokesperson, Mr Michael Chideme, said the council was aware of the obtaining situation.
“That is the reason we have resorted to deal with vendors on an individual basis, notwithstanding the fact that we will always be accommodative to associations representing vendors,” he said.
The Sunday Mail Extra has it on good authority that to be accommodated within the realms of these prime areas, vendors are parting with sums ranging from $30 to $50 upfront under the guise that they are paying ‘protection fees’.
This money goes directly into the coffers of the malcontent.
The CBD thugs have been said to be remnants of the ‘mandimbandimba’.
Council has been charging between $2 to $8 per day for vending activities, which has since been ordered to be reviewed downwards to $1 by the relevant ministry.
The recent emergence of several organisations purporting to represent the interests of the vendors have led many to point to a political hand.
Opposition activists leading calls to defy the government directive are doing so in a bid to maintain the obtaining chaotic environment which will be viewed as failure to address the CBD vending issue.
Presently, close to six organisations are claiming to be representatives of the vendors, a stark contrast to five weeks ago when absolutely no organisation stood in the corner of the genuine informal worker.
Interestingly, some of those who have sprung to form the organisations are well documented opposition politics functionaries.
Zimbabwe Informal Sector director, Promise Mkwananzi, who is also former MDC-T youth assembly secretary-general, said the deadline for the vendors to vacate the CBD was unconstitutional since it violated the citizens’ fundamental rights to livelihood.
He said they have since written to the relevant Minister (Local Government, Public Works and National Housing) a letter of demand through their lawyers. They are hoping the matter will be immediately addressed, failure of which they will approach the courts for an interdict.
“But with or without the response from the Minister, our members are going to stay put and are not moving an inch,” he said.
He, however, denied any political interference in the whole vending fiasco. “On that you can talk to political parties and they can tell you their position with regards to the issue,” he said.
National Vendors Union Zimbabwe director, Simon Wadzai, said his organisation was against the Government’s ultimatum to vendors. He said there was need for a proper strategy.
“The proposed sites can only accommodate 6 000 vendors, whilst a 100 000 vendors are on the streets of Harare,” he said.
Asked which scientific method his organisation used to put the number of vendors on the streets to 100 000, he said, “We estimated, you see, the streets are always full.”
However, Harare Informal Traders Council president, Onismo Gore, said members of his organisation were ready to pull out of the CBD and relocate to council proposed sites.
“We are ready to get out of the CBD and relocate to the proposed sites as we believe that we can still manage to eke out a living from there. We believe that infrastructural development can still progress even if our members are already on the ground,” he said.
“What we should be advocating for is the creation of more vending sites to accommodate the ever growing number of vendors.”
He said vending has become the biggest employer in the country, and no sane person should resist a decision that brings orderliness in the sector.
Last week, Zanu-PF party commissar, Cde Saviour Kasukuwere, warned members against using the party name in their illegal activities.
Of late, stakeholders have been calling for the restoration of sanity in Harare’s CBD following the surge of vending activities that are heavily interfering with formal business and human traffic.
