Vic Falls evicts vendors

Leonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter
THE Victoria Falls Municipality has launched a blitz on vendors as it seeks to rid the resort town of illegal activities. The local authority says the operation is in line with a government ultimatum two months ago that vendors should be moved to designated places. Scores of vendors who operate outside Comesa Flea Market, popularly known as Emaplankeni reportedly lost goods worth thousands of dollars in the operation that started two weeks ago.

Last Wednesday vendors and municipal police were involved in running battles as the informal traders resisted seizure of their wares by the police.

The council wants vendors to operate from designated areas such as Chinotimba Old Market, Bus Terminus and Mkhosana but vendors have resisted saying there is no business there.

Vendors who spoke to The Chronicle accused municipal police of being “inhumane” and corrupt.

“The municipal police have been harassing us since last week. They just raid us and take away our stuff. They also ransacked storerooms and confiscated goods,” said Enosh Moyo, chairperson of the Comesa Traders Association.

He said a majority of informal traders were either widows or retrenches.

“Most of the people here have no jobs and we wonder where the council wants them to go. Our worry is that they’re even ransacking storerooms and confiscating goods that are not on sale,” said Moyo.

He said vendors could not go back to the Old Market because there was no business and most of them could not afford $15 rent per month.

The vendors said they used to pay $1 per month to sell on the street. “We used to pay $1 to operate from here and they stopped collecting the money two months ago. They are now claiming none of us paid yet we’ve receipts for the money we’d been paying for more than two years,” said an angry vendor.

Another vendor said: “We’ve been operating here for several years keeping this place clean compared to the market they want us to go to. What pains us is that we’ve seen some people selling the same goods in the suburbs. Isn’t this corruption?”

Memory Zulu said she lost goods worth $300 while a Zambian who only identified herself as Cathrine said municipal police confiscated her wares worth $400.

Town Clerk Christopher Dube said the operation would continue until sanity prevailed.