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Municipal Reporter
Harare City Council has conceded defeat against illegal vendors in the city centre and is now negotiating with them to create space for pedestrians to move on pavements that have become impassable.
The city has been invaded by vendors who sell wares such as roasted maize cobs, meat, fruits and vegetables, second hand clothes, cellphones and mobile phone lines on the pavements and in front of leading commercial banks and upmarket shops.
In an interview on Wednesday during a tour of Sunningdale where the local councillor Hammy Madzingira, is carrying out various development projects with the community, Harare mayor Clr Bernard Manyenyeni said the city had been overwhelmed by the vendors.
“The Minister (of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Dr Ignatius Chombo) is working on certain arrangements I presented to him. Vending is a reality, it has become a big issue and a problem.
“We are trying to engage them as we speak until a more permanent position is found. We want to look at how we deal with interim solutions around the vending story.
“We are seeing that the encroachment is becoming more and more aggressive .There is not enough passage for one person to pass as vendors line up both sides of the pavements.
“And we have space for one person yet there is supposed to be enough for more traffic. We are trying to engage them so that we create a little bit more of the space the pedestrians need,” he said.
Mayor Manyenyeni said the city was still to evaluate the locations of vending sites as vendors were trying to get closer to the buyer.
He said the city needed to address the uptake of vending sites and come up with incentives for vendors who used designated sites.
“What can be done to incentivise them more? Do we persuade them to use them in preference to the pavements?
“We have an obligation to maintain a clean city at the same time understand where the vendors are coming from,” he said.
The Harare (Hawkers) by-laws 2013, stipulate that no person shall engage or carry out the business of hawking unless he or she is in possession of a valid hawker’s licence.
However, most vendors who have invaded the CBD do not have hawker’s licences.
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