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THE fatal assault this week, arson, general violence and the determined attempt by an organised gang to impose a mafia-style protection racket in the area around the closed Mupedzanhamo Market in northern Mbare, Harare shows the desperate need for a co-ordinated effort to restore some sort of order.
Legally, the Harare City Council has the prime responsibility since the vending and the market itself are all on council land, and besides being the landlord, the council has the general authority to licence trade in the city and to set standards. The council appears to have abdicated that responsibility.
Into the vacuum a violent gang has moved in and is trying to set up a protection racket. You pay off the gang or you face action, basically getting beaten up or even killed, having your stall burned down and your wares destroyed by fire.
The gangs are called “space barons”, but in fact they are mafia-type criminals combining for criminal activity.
The abdication by the council places the burden solely on the police, who are not administrators and are left to fight outright criminal activity, like assault and arson, rather than work with an active administration to prevent the crime in the first place.
But in the absence of any effective administration, the police are not legally-equipped to do anything else, but deal with the crime, and certainly do not have the legal authority or the administrative back-up to set up an orderly market area.
The functions of the police are very clearly defined in the Constitution and the Police Act and running markets is not one of these.
An additional complication is the gang trying to take over the market area claims, according to almost all reports, allegiance to the opposition CCC party led by Mr Nelson Chamisa.
This sort of claim and resulting criminal activity highlights the serious weakness of the CCC in not having an organised structure, proper membership and all the other characteristics expected of a major Parliamentary party. As a result, it cannot take action internally to discipline or expel criminal elements.
Basically the CCC is a loose alliance of leaders who rose through the ranks of the MDC parties over the last couple of decades and who now select candidates for Parliamentary and local authority elections.
There are no membership lists, no branches, zero organisation and zero structure below that self-appointed loose national leadership group.
As there is no way for anyone to formally join the party, anyone can claim to be a member and some of those doing so are the sort of people no political party would want or would admit if people had to apply for membership, fill in a form, accept a simple code of conduct and be listed on a spreadsheet.
So the city council needs to do its job. There are a lot of people who earn a basic low-level income in that market area and trying to close it down will cause a great deal of unnecessary suffering.
But that said there needs to be order, and the safety, health and sanitary concerns need to be addressed effectively.
So the city council needs to reopen the actual Mupedzanhamo market, properly, and needs to think about how it can use some of the vacant land around the market for orderly if temporary market activities.
Neither is impossible and any competent group of officials could quickly set up a system. There are plenty of well-run private flea markets in other parts of the city that manage this exceptionally well for the benefit of stallholders and their customers.
Security and the exclusion of criminal gangs are required. The city council has its own security detachment, the municipal police, but almost certainly will require assistance from the Zimbabwe Republic Police to fight organised crime and, at least at the beginning of the new system, a police presence just to keep everyone calm and orderly.
Here the police do have the legal mandate, and it would make sense for the council officials to have close contact with Mbare police, and probably even better to sort out the planning with the Chief Superintendent commanding Mbare district and even the Commissioner commanding Harare province.
In any case the Mayors and council chairpersons of the local authorities in Harare Metropolitan ought to be on speaking terms with the provincial Commissioner and perhaps this is something the Minister of State’s office could organise.
We expect the police will be far keener on seeing what can be done to prevent crime in the first place than fight crime when it continually erupts.
So the police will be able to give their considered and professional views over how to prevent crime in properly run markets, how to organise those markets to make crime prevention easier, and what sort of links are needed between the market administrators and the police so trouble can be sorted out when it is starting, rather than when fires are blazing.
Of course the traders themselves need to be consulted. They must have ideas on how they can operate safely and so can have valuable input into the planning process.
They will need to agree to licensing and how stalls and space are allocated by impartial officials, and again they know better than anyone how things have gone wrong and can go wrong. And some sort of vetting and appeal process will be needed, and again they will have ideas. No one wants to work with criminals.
Basic rules and a code of conduct are needed in any major market, and those who have to live with those rules and follow the code must be allowed to offer their suggestions.
A major one will be that they apply to everyone, with no exemptions, not even the Mayor’s cousin. And there must be impartial administration, following the Government lead, where party affiliation or support is not a factor.
So the council has its work cut out, and needs to show, somewhere, that it can put in a service and make it work.
That requires a new attitude, not just abdication and leaving it to criminals.
Online Reporter