Tinaye Agere
Online Reporter
The Harare City Council must shoulder its share of the blame for the cholera outbreak in the capital and should not apportion all responsibility for the public health crisis on vendors, a lobby group for street vendors has said.
In an interview, Vendors for Economic Development (Vendors4ED) national chairperson Cde Samora Chisvo said council had failed to guarantee minimum levels of sanitation in the city, resulting in recurrent outbreaks of diarrheal diseases.
City council is presently preparing to launch a city-wide blitz to remove unlicensed vendors from the streets, ostensibly as a measure to curb the spread of cholera.
Cde Chisvo said vendors were concerned by attempts by some groupings aligned to the opposition to politicise a public health emergency.
“We have noted that there are some groups that are trying to politicise this issue,” he said.
“We encourage all vendors not to be used as tools by political parties. The issue of cholera cannot be blamed on vendors only. Cholera is a hygiene disease and the issue of hygiene involves everyone, regardless of occupation.”
He said it was unfair for city authorities to blame vendors for the cholera outbreak when council was failing to collect garbage and attend to sewer bursts.
Failure by the city fathers to maintain basic hygiene in the city, he said, had gone on for too long and needs to be addressed to avoid future disease outbreaks.
“For council to blame vendors when they are failing to deliver on sanitation issues in the city is grossly unfair,” he said.
“In fact, the biggest culprits in all this are the city fathers. They need to attend to the issue of sanitation and poor service delivery. When there is no refuse collection, you will obviously have disease outbreaks. So, to solely blame vendors on the issue of cholera is wrong.”
He said there were plenty of buildings in downtown Harare that are overcrowded.
“There are no sanitation facilities in these buildings and in some cases there is no running water.
“Then you see everyone laying the blame on vendors.”
He said Vendors4ED was engaging Government to find an amicable solution to the problem.
“Admittedly, here and there we might have a few bad apples within or sector who may be culpable, but that does not make us all the culprits,” he continued.
“We are entering the rainy season where some bad actors among us are known to use dirty water to cook maize for resale.
“We, however, encourage our vendors to ensure their workspaces are clean and to exercise the highest levels of personal hygiene.”
He added:
“We are engaging the Ministry of Health; Local Government; the Ministry of SMEs and the City of Harare so that we come up with an amicable working solution where all stakeholders play their part. We don’t want a situation where one stakeholder takes all the blame.”
Harare City Council head of corporate communications Mr Stanley Gama said:
“We have all agreed with stakeholders to dissuade the vendors from selling foodstuff and to use designated spaces. We are encouraging illegal traders to register with the council, when they register they will be given spaces to operate from.”
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter