Soldiers chase vendors out of town

via Soldiers chase vendors out of town. 13 November 2014

HARARE city authorities have roped in army details to help municipal police drive out hundreds of illegal vendors who continue to throng the capital, selling perishables and all manner of bric-a-brac to survive in a failing economy.

The development comes after most vendors largely snubbed a council registration exercise introduced recently to control the ballooning population of illegal traders within the Central Business District (CBD).

The vendors, who throng city walkways with fresh vegetables, airtime recharge cards, pirated CDs and an innumerable miscellany of products, have also defied continued raids by municipal police as they keep invading the city centre to eke out a living.

Over 2,100 vendors were reportedly registered with the authority, paying fees of between $1 and $3, depending on the type of wares they sold.

After the lapse of the stipulated registration period, the city moved to dislodge those who snubbed the registration process with municipal police now seen being escorted by uniformed soldiers and regular police details on council enforcement trucks.

Although there have not yet been any reported incidents of heavy handedness in dealing with traders by the soldiers, vendors groups have condemned the use of the army on civilian activities.

The National Vendors Union, which claims to have a registered membership of over 12,000 individuals operating within the CBD area alone, slammed the exercise.

“We condemn the involvement of the state security apparatus in the affairs of vendors because these are socio-economic issues,” said Samuel Wadzai, National Vendors Union of Zimbabwe national director.

Wadzai said as various vendor representative organisations, they have confronted city authorities over the operation and were told the army beef-up was to stave-off any violent resistance from defiant vendors.

“Their (authorities) argument is that the registration process that they introduced is a government programme, the army will come in to ensure that elements who would try not to comply would be removed by force,” he said.

“They made that very clear to us in one of the meetings that we attended. We questioned the involvement of the army in this process and they said that there are high chances that some vendors would resist this plan.

“We were shocked when the director of human resources announced that the army was going to be involved … we don’t want the army, the ZRP to be involved in issues of vendors.”

“This is the first time l am hearing about this but l know last week there was a discussion between management and JOC (Joint Operations Command); whether out of that they resolved to seek military help l am not sure.”

JOC is a committee that involves all the country’s security organs who regularly meet over security issues concerning the country.

Although Harare is yet to witness this in the recent, incidences of violent clashes between municipal police and vendors have been reported in Masvingo and Gweru.