By Revelation Editor
We support the path taken by Lusaka mayor Chitambala Mwewa to remove street vendors from the streets to the designated trading areas, under “Operation Clear path”.
Bringing sanity to the Central Business District by restoring order should be supported by all.
We actually welcome the ruling UPND’s support of the action, of course under some ‘caveat’, because the same support is only coming after the party has secured another term in office. This same government at one point removed the vendors from the streets but paid a blind eye when they converged again into the CBD. Clearly, they paid a blind eye, probably with the tacit support of some of the influential figures in the UPND purely for political purposes. They must have feared that it was too risky to anger them because of the potential loss of votes. We hope this new support from the ruling party will hold, now and during election time, because the move they have taken is a progressive one.
But opposition parties have not helped matters. They probably have even influenced the ruling party’s lukewarm approach on the issue of street vending because they senselessly want to use street vendors as a campaign tool. These are irresponsible opposition people who want to oppose everything just because it is being pushed by those from the ruling party. Zambians are urged to treat such opposition figures with the contempt they deserve. These are people who would rather have the nation’s most important CDF in that eyesore state no Zambian could ever be proud of. They would rather have a CBD that stinks with waste disposed off anyhow, with people peeing and pooping wherever they wish, as long as they could benefit from the votes. They do not care about the health of those vendors who trade in squalor, who in the process risk their health and the health of other Zambians. For them all that matters are the votes they can get from the people who trade in squalor and filthy environments devoid of the required amenities such as bathrooms and toilets.
We agree with Citizens First spokesperson Stanley Mhango when he says that continued street vending makes it difficult for the local authority health department to ensure that goods and foodstuffs being sold are safe for human consumption, as health inspectors cannot carry out routine inspections in chaotic streets.
Indeed as Mhango stated, no city can prosper when its centre is governed by disorder.
Mhango urged his fellow opposition politicians to desist from using street vendors as a campaign tool by promoting lawlessness, saying defending illegality for votes is not pro-poor, it is anti-development.
We have followed the arguments that other opposition politicians like Socialist Party leader Fred M’membe, Binwell Mpundu and the others have advanced.
M’membe argued that he had repeatedly cautioned in previous statements, that driving vendors out without first guaranteeing realistic, accessible, and functional economic alternatives is an act of governance that prioritizes aesthetics over human survival. We agree that the welfare of vendors must be guaranteed as M’membe is advancing. However, some of those who trade in the streets simply do not want to trade in market places as they want to trade in areas that offer them close proximity to customers. No matter the greatest of efforts to guarantee the welfare of vendors, there are just some who will prefer to continue trading on the streets. We believe that even if M’membe himself and those who are advancing similar arguments as his were afforded public office, they would not operate to a degree where they would offer those opportunities to people to make vendors voluntarily stay out of the streets.
M’membe argued that “the council’s repetitive playbook is as predictable as it is unsustainable.”
”Every few years, an eviction campaign is launched, livelihoods are abruptly broken overnight, and the local authority points to supposedly vacant market spaces as a universal cure. But if these official markets were truly viable, safe, and located where the public actually shops, the streets would not be teeming with traders,” stated M’membe.
However, where the official markets are located right now, as important as M’membe’s argument is, should not arise for now because the planning has already been done and the idea is to work with what is already in place. However, probably a replanning will be required to meet up with what M’membe is advancing. But that won’t come cheap. It will require money.
What the mayor needs right now is support from M’membe to push on with Operation Clear Path, including offering concrete solutions to ensure that most of the valid submissions he is raising are incorporated. Vendors have been moving back to the streets after being cleared off the streets because they know that they can simply exploit on the support from some of those in the opposition, to put pressure on those in public office, especially during election time.
If politicians spoke with one voice on the issue of street vending, there would be no way the vendors would exploit the matter. Let’s have a clean CBD we shall all be proud of.
Related
By Revelation Editor
We support the path taken by Lusaka mayor Chitambala Mwewa to remove street vendors from the streets to the designated trading areas, under “Operation Clear path”.
Bringing sanity to the Central Business District by restoring order should be supported by all.
We actually welcome the ruling UPND’s support of the action, of course under some ‘caveat’, because the same support is only coming after the party has secured another term in office. This same government at one point removed the vendors from the streets but paid a blind eye when they converged again into the CBD. Clearly, they paid a blind eye, probably with the tacit support of some of the influential figures in the UPND purely for political purposes. They must have feared that it was too risky to anger them because of the potential loss of votes. We hope this new support from the ruling party will hold, now and during election time, because the move they have taken is a progressive one.
But opposition parties have not helped matters. They probably have even influenced the ruling party’s lukewarm approach on the issue of street vending because they senselessly want to use street vendors as a campaign tool. These are irresponsible opposition people who want to oppose everything just because it is being pushed by those from the ruling party. Zambians are urged to treat such opposition figures with the contempt they deserve. These are people who would rather have the nation’s most important CDF in that eyesore state no Zambian could ever be proud of. They would rather have a CBD that stinks with waste disposed off anyhow, with people peeing and pooping wherever they wish, as long as they could benefit from the votes. They do not care about the health of those vendors who trade in squalor, who in the process risk their health and the health of other Zambians. For them all that matters are the votes they can get from the people who trade in squalor and filthy environments devoid of the required amenities such as bathrooms and toilets.
We agree with Citizens First spokesperson Stanley Mhango when he says that continued street vending makes it difficult for the local authority health department to ensure that goods and foodstuffs being sold are safe for human consumption, as health inspectors cannot carry out routine inspections in chaotic streets.
Indeed as Mhango stated, no city can prosper when its centre is governed by disorder.
Mhango urged his fellow opposition politicians to desist from using street vendors as a campaign tool by promoting lawlessness, saying defending illegality for votes is not pro-poor, it is anti-development.
We have followed the arguments that other opposition politicians like Socialist Party leader Fred M’membe, Binwell Mpundu and the others have advanced.
M’membe argued that he had repeatedly cautioned in previous statements, that driving vendors out without first guaranteeing realistic, accessible, and functional economic alternatives is an act of governance that prioritizes aesthetics over human survival. We agree that the welfare of vendors must be guaranteed as M’membe is advancing. However, some of those who trade in the streets simply do not want to trade in market places as they want to trade in areas that offer them close proximity to customers. No matter the greatest of efforts to guarantee the welfare of vendors, there are just some who will prefer to continue trading on the streets. We believe that even if M’membe himself and those who are advancing similar arguments as his were afforded public office, they would not operate to a degree where they would offer those opportunities to people to make vendors voluntarily stay out of the streets.
M’membe argued that “the council’s repetitive playbook is as predictable as it is unsustainable.”
”Every few years, an eviction campaign is launched, livelihoods are abruptly broken overnight, and the local authority points to supposedly vacant market spaces as a universal cure. But if these official markets were truly viable, safe, and located where the public actually shops, the streets would not be teeming with traders,” stated M’membe.
However, where the official markets are located right now, as important as M’membe’s argument is, should not arise for now because the planning has already been done and the idea is to work with what is already in place. However, probably a replanning will be required to meet up with what M’membe is advancing. But that won’t come cheap. It will require money.
What the mayor needs right now is support from M’membe to push on with Operation Clear Path, including offering concrete solutions to ensure that most of the valid submissions he is raising are incorporated. Vendors have been moving back to the streets after being cleared off the streets because they know that they can simply exploit on the support from some of those in the opposition, to put pressure on those in public office, especially during election time.
If politicians spoke with one voice on the issue of street vending, there would be no way the vendors would exploit the matter. Let’s have a clean CBD we shall all be proud of.
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