BY Tafadzwa Evans Muranganwa – OWN CORRESPONDENT.
Harare, Zimbabwe. (News Of The South) – Placard-waving vendors demonstrated peacefully against continued “harassment and extortion” by municipal police at Town House Building in Harare .
At mid-day on Thursday, National Vendors Union of Zimbabwe (NAVUZ) members gathered at the Harare City Council offices singing and dancing.
The protestors donning yellow bibs inscribed “Vending is my Life” and hoisting placards successfully handed a petition to Acting Mayor, Councillor Wilton Njanji, in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) run city.
“Worried about the continued assaults and raids on vendors especially in the Central Business District (CBD) at a time they are struggling in a comatose economy, we demand that council takes necessary measures to ensure that harassment and extortion of struggling vendors be stopped forthwith,” the petition read in part.
Continued assaults and raids on vendors especially in the Central Business District (CBD) at a time they are struggling in a comatose economy, we demand that council takes necessary measures to ensure that harassment and extortion of struggling vendors be stopped
forthwith,” added the petition Zimrights National Chairperson Passmore Nyakureba speaking on the incident said: “The vendors have genuine grievances which we have always said must be addressed taking into consideration their constitutional rights and basic humanity. If the authorities take into consideration the state of the economy with very few opportunities for decent work at the moment, they would consider finding accommodation in their own plans for the plight of the vendors who, not out of disrespect and notoriety, but genuine necessity, also take the streets as their workplaces”.
The vendors, who urged government to observe constitutional rights such as freedom from degrading treatment, also made sensational claims of corruption in Council.
They went on: “We further demand that Council investigates authorities at Town House working in cahoots with corrupt municipal cops to extort money and confiscate goods from desperate vendors in the CBD.
“Raids on vendors have actually turned out to be a cash cow for rogue municipal cops and their superiors.”
Vendors’ groups last year, claimed that second hand clothes confiscated from their stocks had been distributed at a ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party rally.
Last year, government launched an unpopular operation of chasing vendors from the streets countrywide, but with high unemployment in the economy it has been like returning water into a leaking container without first plugging the leak.
The move even sparked a demonstration and petition to Parliament last year.
NAVUZ in the petition suggests that the City of Harare should convene an all stakeholders approach to the issue of vendors rather than unilateral decisions which can worsen the situation.
As the vendors resisted from being pushed out of the streets last year, where they eke out a living in an economy in the hard times, municipal police resorted to violence and destruction of the informal traders’ properties.
Comments
About Author
