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empty shop shelves of the old order while the new shops, sometimes hardly enough space for one to stand in, were awash with goods.
Eventually, these little shops, a borrowed concept from such countries as Mozambique and South Africa and as far afield as Nigeria, saw the country through the worst. They also made huge profits for their owners who then went on to own as many such structures as possible. On the other hand it provided the cue to city fathers who henceforth grew an acceptance of and legality for these small cubicles and holes as shops to complement or rival the established ones.
The trend has become so rampant that these little shops have knocked on the plinth of the long cherished colonial bequests of order such as the First Street Mall in Harare. Only there is one problem, and many others as corollary. It is common cause that many of these shops are owned, or rented, by foreigners such as Nigerians and Congolese and Chinese.
These peoples are generally moneyed, or more moneyed than locals, that they have apparently pushed rentals of shops to astronomical levels. Wherever they get the money one cannot say with certainty — as whether or not the same would have been gained legitimately inside or outside Zimbabwe’s borders.
Figures of as high as US$5 000 per month and attendant fees such as “Goodwill” have been bandied about as passport to renting a shop in Harare.
However, the foreigners, or cabals of foreigners, are always on top of the game going the further mile of offering to pay the monies for a year or six months.
Without looking at Government policies and law such as the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act which stipulates that such sectors as retail, bakeries, barbershops, etc, should be reserved for locals, there is something fundamentally wrong in this.
Locals are being unfairly priced out of these shops which, for their ugliness, could provide some bread on the table. The unfair competition is made worse by the fact that some foreigners are dubiously reputed for smuggling, again in and by their well-connected cabals, which make things easier for them to the detriment of Government and its people.
When they set shop, foreigners are known to sell modestly, at least this time around, and could make do with pocketing less than US$100 for the sale of trinkets or usually fake and cheap motor spares and accessories.
Yet they peddle a lot of money which points to their employment of a shop business as a front for dirty and illicit trade and trafficking.
This adds to the original sin of depriving locals a nasty dimension in which Zimbabwe is being made a haven for drug peddlers and a transit point of drugs to countries such as South Africa and as far afield as China. It does not need a rocket scientist to point out that a person or group of persons making a hell lot of money through drug trafficking would hesitate to fork out ridiculous, by our modest standards, amounts of rent for a little hovel.
Having been unsparing in the physical attributes of the shops, here is a case for bringing order back to the retail sector. Council should stop forthwith the construction of tuckshop-like structures and partitioning of shops in the city, which is threatening whatever little Sunshine has been left of Harare.
Being an eyesore, these structures are also a threat to public health and wellbeing.
For example, a shop that was meant for a single shop and a couple of its employees to house four or six other sub-shops places infrastructure under much weight.
The ventilation and toilets in these poorly-lit hovels are a danger to the public and the workers, who happen to be locals. If the multiplication of these shops has meant more rent and levies, it surely has not been felt anywhere else. By contrast, the city continues to deteriorate both aesthetically and by way of amenities.
Online Reporter