adminRay Bande Senior Reporter
OVER 1 000 Sakubva Flea Market vendors will soon relocate to Murapa Tavern after Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs, Cde Mandi Chimene’s diplomatic overtures at a meeting held with vendors’ representatives last Thursday yielded an agreement between the warring parties. Battle lines had been drawn between Mutare City Council and vendors, with the latter resisting the formers’ move to relocate them to Murapa Tavern.
Initially, vendors resisted the decision to move their wares to Murapa Tavern – a beerhall at the heart of the sprawling Sakubva high-density suburb in Mutare – citing numerous reasons, chief among them purported inaccessibility to customers, as well as the stigma associated with the area.
A plan to transfer them to the area between Red Cross and Mutare Aerodrome in Sakubva had been mooted and agreed subject to the Civil Aviation Authority’s consent.
However, at a meeting that was held at Sakubva Stadium between the vendors’ representatives, the local authority management, Joint Operations Committee members and Cde Chimene, it was learnt that the Civil Aviation Authority, which oversees the nearby aircraft landing strip, Mutare Aerodrome, did not want a structure of the nature of a flea market to be erected around that area.
Therefore the only option would to have the vendors relocated to Murapa Tavern.
The meeting agreed that a proper registration exercise would be carried out and that would culminate into organised relocation to Murapa Tavern.
“We are not here to fight or to display our muscles. No. We are here to find solution, as a family, to the challenge that we face. When I visited that Flea Market area, I was not pleased with what I saw. It was filthy and my thinking is that we have to be a bit more organised as a people.
“Now that we have not been able to get the place we wanted because experts at the Civil Aviation Authority made their demands, we just have to reach an agreement.
“In this case, I think we have also done our part in consenting to the demands to relocate to the area between Red Cross and Mutare Aerodrome, but the Civil Aviation Authority refused hence I think it is now your turn to understand us that we just do not have any other area.
“The fact that the new place is not accessible to customers is neither here nor there because we can as well start placing billboards that show directions and people will soon get used to the new sight just as they did on the current one,” said Cde Chimene during last Thursday’s meeting.
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