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Midlands Reporter
GWERU City Council has availed over 500 vending stalls to accommodate vendors who have been selling their products at undesignated points. In an interview last week, the city council’s spokesperson, Mr Manford Gambiza, said the local authority recently removed illegal vendors from the central business district (CBD) pavements following a typhoid outbreak.
He said council built the vending stalls in the light industrial area to accommodate all the vendors.
“Council has built over 500 vending stalls and ablution facilities in the light industries to accommodate vendors who had become an eyesore in the CBD,” he said.
“Council does not tolerate any traders operating from undesignated points.
“Streets are meant for human and vehicular traffic. Town planning standards should be maintained.”
Mr Gambiza said there were numerous challenges residents and shop operators were facing, among them blocked pavements and roads, as traders were encroaching onto the roads while generating a lot of refuse which was strewn all over the CBD.
“Gweru is a clean city and this should be maintained at all costs,” he said.
“Some of the litter is thrown into the drainage system, thereby blocking rain water movement. This has resulted in flooding in some cases.
“Vendors are allowed to sell their wares freely in Gweru if they conduct their business from designated places.
“We encourage the traders to come in their numbers for them to be allocated the bays.
“We will never tolerate a situation where traders do business without control.”
The local authority claims that there is no official trader in Gweru who has no bay to trade from and what could be the challenge is lack of the state-of-the-art trading points.
A typhoid outbreak in Gweru last year claimed eight lives and left over 2 000 residents requiring medical assistance, a development that resulted in council chasing illegal vendors from the pavements and streets.
Online Reporter