COMMENT: Crackdown on Illegal schools exposes deep gaps in urban oversight

Bulawayo City Council’s decision to name and shame 12 illegal pre-schools and private schools, alongside dozens of non-compliant businesses, is a necessary intervention.

The list is long, the violations are serious, and the message is overdue: public safety cannot be negotiated. When Treetop Learning Centre, My Little Pony and Friends Pre-school, and Early Childhood Centre are found operating with no paperwork at all, the city is not dealing with a clerical oversight. It is dealing with a breakdown in basic regulation where the most vulnerable, children under six, are the ones at risk.

The council’s latest enforcement blitz reads like an audit of a city growing faster than its ability to govern. In Nkulumane and other “sprouting suburbs,” nine pre-schools including Vantage, Community Little Hope, St Ernerly, Rescue, Creative Minds, Joyful Nursery and Day Care, Children First, and even Herentals Private School were all operating without development permits, council-approved building plans, or food handler medical certificates.

Ruby Rose Pre-school had staff handling children’s meals who were not medically examined. These are not trivial gaps. A development permit confirms a structure is safe for occupancy. Approved plans mean fire exits, ventilation, and sanitation were checked. Food handler certificates exist because typhoid, cholera, and food poisoning do not ask for excuses before striking a classroom.

The problem extends beyond education. Mujamela Sandis Groceries ran a shop without a licence. Cheese and Wine Shop at Ascot Shopping Centre sold liquor with neither a liquor nor shop licence. PW Trading and Butchery in Njube was selling uninspected meat. Na-toe Butchery, NyamaFarma, and Choruwa and Grizzler Meats had no medical certificates for food handlers.

EnvironGas in Old Lobengula was retailing gas without a trading licence. In total, 48 tickets were issued in one sweep. That number signals scale. This is not a few bad actors. It is a pattern.

Businesses can be fined and shut down. Consumers can choose elsewhere. Children cannot. Parents drop toddlers at pre-schools trusting that the gate, the roof, the toilet, and the meal have all passed minimum safety checks. When a school operates without council approval, none of that is guaranteed.

In high-density suburbs where space is tight and demand for affordable childcare is high, unregistered operators fill a gap. But they do so by externalising risk onto families and the public health system. One outbreak traced to an unexamined food handler at a pre-school costs the city far more than the fees council failed to collect.

The clustering of violations in Nkulumane is no accident. New suburbs grow, populations swell, and formal school places lag. Entrepreneurs respond, often with good intentions but without capital to meet regulatory costs.

The result is Treetop Learning Centre in North End or Early Childhood Centre in Sauerstown opening doors before opening files at City Hall. The council’s inspections are now catching up, but the pipeline of illegal operators will keep refilling.

Naming and shaming works. It forces owners to comply or close, and it warns parents. The inclusion of specific names, from My Little Pony and Friends to Bhutsha Sunfit Trading, removes the anonymity that allows repeat offences. Yet enforcement alone treats symptoms.

Two questions remain. First, why did these institutions operate for months or years before detection? Second, what happens to the children enrolled there once intimations are issued?

On the first, council’s capacity is stretched. Building inspectors, health officers, and licensing teams cannot be everywhere at once. But residents are. A functional whistleblower channel, school registration database accessible by SMS, and ward-level compliance committees would multiply eyes on the ground. On the second, shutting a school without a transition plan punishes parents twice.

Council, together with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, needs a fast-track regularisation window: audit the premises, list required upgrades, give a 90-day compliance period, and shut only those that refuse or fail.

The goal is safety, not body counts of closed schools.
The business violations tell a similar story of risk transferred to the public. Selling uninspected meat is not a paperwork issue. It is a direct health threat. Trading gas without a licence in Old Lobengula risks fires in areas where emergency response times are already strained.

Operating a barber shop at an unauthorised location in Lobengula West or running a tea room without a certificate at Zimcampus Riverside points to a culture where licences are seen as optional.

That culture costs the city revenue, but more importantly it erodes standards. Compliant operators, like Value Gas or Ascot Hardware before they were cited, are undercut by those who skip fees and safety steps.

Bulawayo, like all urban councils, is under pressure to fund services with a shrinking base. Every unlicensed shop, butchery, and school represents lost revenue that should maintain roads, clinics, and water.

But the bigger loss is trust. When residents see illegal operators trading for years, they conclude that compliance is for the naive. When they then see sudden blitzes, they conclude enforcement is arbitrary. Consistency is the bridge between those extremes. Routine, predictable inspections backed by transparent data, do more than 48 tickets in one week.

Bulawayo’s growth is real. New suburbs mean new families, new businesses, and new demands. The choice is binary: either the city’s regulatory framework grows with it, or informality becomes the norm. The latest blitz proves council can act.

The 48 tickets prove it must. The children at Vantage Pre-School, the shoppers at Blesspack Supermarket, and the families buying meat from Sitshebo Butchery all deserve a city where the basics are not optional.

Cracking down is the start. Building a system where illegal operation is difficult, detected quickly, and resolved fairly is the finish line.

Until then, every named institution is a reminder of how much work remains. The council has drawn a line. Holding it will take more than raids. It will take routine governance, strong backing, and a public that insists on standards.