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Cholera fears fail to halt daring Zimbabwe vendors
ZimOnline
January 12, 2006

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KHII-6KY3MP?OpenDocument&rc=1&cc=zwe

HARARE - A sweating 45-year old James Zizhou can hardly drag himself up the stairs as he grapples with a sack-load of fish at a block of flats in Harare's Avenues residential area.

Zizhou pauses for a few minutes, wipes off the sweat from his brow, and walks towards door number seven. There, he carefully presses the doorbell to announce his presence.

In a deep, booming voice, Zizhou bellows: "Fresh bream for sale!

"Today I have brought cheap fish. Buy five and get one free. You can also get the fish on credit today because I have too much stock," he tells the young woman who answered the door, putting his deft marketing skills to good use.

With the deal done, Zizhou moves on to the next potential customer.

With the chances of finding a formal job almost nil in a country where unemployment is above 70 percent, Zizhou and many Zimbabweans have found solace in the informal sector, vending food commodities most of them in critical short supply in the country.

And despite the clear health hazards in consuming contaminated food products, especially meat and fish, sold on the open market as shown by the death of 14 people over the last three weeks due to cholera, residents of Harare are still lining up to buy from Zizhou and other vendors because of the cheaper price.

Zimbabwe is going through a severe economic crisis described by the World Bank as unprecedented for a country not at war. Inflation stands at 585.8 percent, one of the highest in the world.

The government's Central Statistical Office says an average family of five now needs at least Z$17 million a month to survive. But for most workers in Harare who earn about Z$3 million a month, the price of meat has shot beyond their reach forcing them to buy the product from vendors whose prices are deemed reasonable.

Western governments and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party blame President Robert Mugabe for ruining the country's economy, one of the strongest in Africa at independence from Britain 25 years ago.

Mugabe denies the charge insisting the economic crisis is due to sabotage by Britain and her allies whom he says were unhappy over his seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks six years ago.

In a bid to control the cholera outbreak, the Harare authorities on Tuesday banned the vending of fish and meat products.

But cholera or no cholera, it is business as usual for Zizhou and thousands of other vendors trading their wares on Zimbabwe's streets.

"I clean my fish. There is no way I can sell poison to people. I have been selling fish here for more than a year and I have never heard that anyone has died because of my fish," says Zizhou when asked if his business did not pose a health hazard to residents.

Margaret Chuma, a 34-year old mother of three in Harare's poor suburb of Mbare, blames the government for creating the economic crisis that has seen people resort to vending in a bid to survive.

Chuma, who buys meat from butcheries in Domboshawa just outside Harare, says she resells the meat to well-to-do professionals in Harare who have found the price of beef in Harare's supermarkets and butcheries well beyond their reach. A kilogramme of beef is costing around Z$280 000 per kilogramme in Harare.

"This has been my way of earning a living for the past year since the government destroyed our vending sites in the locations. Now they want to use this cholera thing to shut us out from an earning honest living," she adds.

The government last year destroyed thousands of illegal shacks and backyard houses in a controversial clean-up exercise which left at least 700 000 people without shelter. Mugabe said the clean up was necessary to rid cities and towns of filth.

The vendors denied that it was their meat that was causing cholera blaming the health crisis on government mismanagement. They also said uncollected garbage because of a six-year crippling fuel crisis had also contributed to the health crisis in urban areas.

"The government should help the Harare city council pick up the dirt in and around the city. This is what causes cholera and not our meat," said Chuma.

Sekesayi Makwavarara, the chairperson of a government appointed commission running Harare threatened to unleash municipal police on those defying the meat ban.

"The municipal police will deal with people who violate the ban," she said this week.

But to most vendors there is only one option and that is to carry on selling their goods - meat included - or face starvation. As Chuma eloquently puts it: "We have to feed our families."

The residents said this on the sidelines of a tour of the area by the Minister of Health and Child Welfare, David Parirenyatwa to assess the situation at Mbare Musika in light of the Cholera outbreak that has hit some parts of the country.

Harare City Council shut the bustling market on Monday to enable the local authority to clear heaps of refuse that had gone uncollected for months.

Earth moving machines from the council’s department of works were removing the garbage yesterday with town clerk Nomutsa Chideya saying they wanted to complete the exercise within a week.

"Zvakaitwa nekanzuru zvakanaka. Tiri kungorarama nenyasha dzamwari. Mamwe Mazuva tinotomuka pazvivanze pachifamba makonye. (What the council did is welcome. We are surviving in these conditions by the grace of God. At times we wake up only to be greeted by worms and maggots," said Happymore Mapuzva.

He added that the maggots were coming from a section of the market where some people sell live chickens and urged council to remove the vendors from the place.

Loveness Katiyo, a mother of three from Tichagarika Flats said flies had infested the area because of the unhygienic conditions at the market.

"Besides the rotting vegetables, most of the people who do business there no longer use toilets, but just relieve themselves anywhere. The problem is that children play in some of those places and it exposes them to all sorts of diseases," she said.

A strong stench from the garbage, which was being removed, engulfed the market with the situation being worsened by the recurrent rains.

Another resident Manyara Katiyo said council should not have waited for the rubbish to gather before taking action.

"If the rubbish was being removed regularly it would not have come to this. We don’t know what would have happened if there was no Cholera outbreak. They have now disturbed business for everyone here and this might result in prices of produce rising," he said.

Parirenyatwa urged council to collect refuse on time.

"If we leave things like that we are letting people down. We should help each other to clean up the place. We must collect bins on time and license people properly. We do not want another Operation Murambatsvina here," the minister said.

Council has already set up an inter-departmental committee to look at the clean up of Mbare.

Parirenyatwa said it was necessary to include officials from other ministries like agriculture, short and medium enterprises and health in the clean up exercise.

Chideya said as a temporary measure the council would level the wholesale markets after the removal of refuse and compact the ground with rubble from structures that were destroyed under Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order.

"The long term plan is to come up with satellite markets in Mabvuku, Hatcliffe and Dzivaresekwa.
We also have to take care of the drainage system here, the toilet facilities are not adequate," Chideya said.

He added that council operations were being crippled by shortages of fuel that has seen them getting 10 000 litres of fuel a month instead of between 30 000 and 40 000 a week they receive under normal circumstances.

Meanwhile, Parirenyatwa said there was no change in the number of people affected by cholera, but said the capital’s Beatrice Hospital had handled nine cases of suspected cholera infections since the outbreak of the disease in December.

"At Beatrice we had nine discharges and the situation remains the same countrywide. All our hospitals are now on high alert especially at central hospitals," he added.

The diarrhoeal disease has resulted in 14 deaths while 284 have been infected so far.

Other officials on the tour included Parirenyatwa’s deputy, Edwin Muguti, Harare Provincial Administrator, Musavaya Reza and council officials, among them the director of health services, Stanley Mungofa and other senior council employees

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