Online Reporter
Dorothy N Sithole
Vendors across Mashonaland West began National Clean-Up Day at dawn on Friday, sweeping streets and collecting litter in trading areas without formal instruction, continuing a practice they now observe on the first Friday of every month.
The traders started work at 7 am., an hour before the official two-hour window set by the government, using brooms and bin bags to clear waste from market spaces. The self-driven exercise has become routine for vendors in the province, according to Cde Nicholas Z. Chiyangwa, National Executive Member of the Mashonaland West Patriotic Vendors4ED.
“As for vendors in Mash West, it’s now automatic. Nobody tells the other. Every first Friday of the month, exactly at 7 a.m., you’ll see vendors picking up litter,” Chiyangwa told reporters during the exercise. “We are always alert to the marching orders from our President. We love our nation and we will always lift up our beautiful nation. Zimbabwe will be a middle-class economy by 2030.”
The National Clean-Up Campaign was launched by President Emmerson Mnangagwa on December 5, 2018. It designates the first Friday of each month as National Clean-Up Day, with citizens, businesses, and government departments encouraged to dedicate 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. to cleaning their communities. The initiative forms part of the Second Republic’s environmental agenda and supports the national goal of attaining upper-middle-income economy status by 2030.
Chiyangwa said the vendors’ participation reflects a shared responsibility to build cleaner and healthier communities. Across the province, trading activity paused as vendors prioritized the clean-up, replacing routine business with collective sanitation work.
The campaign aims to cultivate environmental stewardship and ensure safe living spaces countrywide.
