Africa-Press – Zambia. Vendors along Lusaka’s Cha Cha Cha and Cairo roads have appealed to government to reconsider its decision to remove them. One of the vendors talked to by Diamond News, Alick Mafuleka, says he has no other source of income apart from trading along the streets. Another vendor, Timothy Mugaza, says business is difficult in the markets as compared to trading in the along the streets.
Meanwhile, Lusaka mayor says government has not backtracked on its decision to remove the vendors and there’s need to have a clean and healthy city hence the need to move the vendors. But is it not possible to have a clean and healthy environment with vendors on the streets? Are the two really mutually exclusive?
Our politicians love to say how they love small businesses but there’s not so much respect for street vendors. It’s important to see vendors as a part of the small business community. And historically, they have been. Some of our successful retailers started out as street vendors. Vending should be considered a valid starting point for businesses, and more should be done to encourage it.
On removing vendors from our city streets, our politicians are usually only looking at things cross-sectionally, not longitudinally. They’re not considering that over the long run small investments that people make in themselves and their families can sometimes turn into large paybacks in entrepreneurial activities. Not always; small businesses fail all the time. But sometimes they pay great dividends.
These are people who add life to our cities. And our cities can find ways to comprehend them and their purposes and integrate them more completely into the city’s larger purposes. There’s a variety of ways that commerce can occur on the street, and I think that cities should clearly be interested in encouraging across that spectrum. That means getting the city more involved in working with vendors.
Cities like Lusaka need to use their business development arms to do more to help vendors understand the rules and to develop their vending operations into sustainable and even expandable businesses. A city that has the money and has the resources to do it should be doing it. Instead of driving vendors from the street it is better to help them understand how to work within the city’s regulations and to improve their business standards.
There’s need to help vendors in our cities secure their rights and function as legitimate businesses.That’s going to be good for the city. It’s going to get vendors to comply with the rules, and it’s hopefully going to let vendors grow their businesses. And that grows the tax base
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