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Harare residents up in arms against relocation of fresh produce market
ZimOnline
January 18, 2006

HARARE - Matilda Banda heaves two bags of potatoes onto her head, swaying her neck sideways to find her balance as she wades her way past the rotting fruit and vegetable cast-offs piling up into a stinking heap not far from the rows of fresh fruit and vegetables on sale.

A mere three hours of trading at the new farm produce market near the City Sports Centre on the western outskirts of Harare has turned the unpaved ground into a stagnant mass of mud, rotting mangoes and cabbages after light rains the previous night.

And with every step Banda takes, she risks skidding and slipping into pools of mud mashed and pulped underfoot by hundreds of other vendors plodding up and down in search of produce for resale in Harare's outlying residential areas.

"After all this (shoving and pushing through the mud) the next hurdle is passing through town to get transport back home. Why do they punish us like this?" bemoaned Banda, one hand outstretched like an acrobat trying to find balance on a trapeze.

The 35-year old Banda, a single mother from the low-income suburb of Mabvuku, was referring to city council officials, who hastily and without warning decided to relocate the popular Mbare Musika farm produce market site from near the Mbare working class suburb to the City Sport Centre in a desperate bid to avert a cholera outbreak.

Unlike the Mbare Musika, which was more centrally positioned and accessible, the new site is located near the up-market Ridgeview suburb and is inaccessible to the lower income groups who most utilise the market. Vendors have to foot long distances to reach the new market site which is far away from most traditional bus termini.

Pushcarts that would have ameliorated transportation problems have been banned from the city streets.

Farmers and market gardeners are also finding it hard to bring in produce to the market as lorries ferrying goods often get stuck in the unpaved ground at the market that has virtually become a sea of mud following heavy rains that pounded Harare in recent days.

"We lose business when trading places are changed without notification," complained the driver of a truck, who was soliciting for assistance to rescue his vehicle stuck in the mud from a group of reluctant onlookers.

Phillip Maroodza, 40, one of the middlemen known as "makoronyera" (scroungers) for short-changing vendors complained that they were now operating in the open without protection from the rain and the sun despite paying huge trading levies to the council.

"Council has merely transferred a problem from one location to the other. At least we had a roof over our heads at Mbare," Maroodza told a ZimOnline news crew that toured the City Sports Centre market place.

The government appointed Commission running Harare unilaterally decided this week to relocate the farm produce vending market from Mbare fearing further outbreaks of cholera which killed three family members in Harare's Glen View 8 suburb.

The commission said the relocation of the market plus other measures it has taken have seen cholera being brought under control in the capital city. But the Combined Harare Residents Association, (CHRA), a residents' lobby group disputes this saying it has evidence more people are visiting the city's Beatrice Infectious Diseases hospital seeking treatment for the highly infectious water-borne disease.

The pressure group also says it is dishonesty for the Harare commission to claim to be taking measures to prevent cholera while at the same time residents have gone for weeks without clean drinking water and have to depend on unprotected wells for water.

"This (relocation of market) was an unplanned move that demonstrates negligence and dereliction of duty on the part of the Commission," said Precious Shumba, spokesman for CHRA.

CHRA has threatened to take local government minister, Ignatius Chombo and the Harare Commission to court over the forced relocation of the farm produce market.

"The new site has no sanitary facilities and exposes both vendors and farmers to cholera and dysentery infections in violation of the Public Health Act," Shumba says.

But if there is anyone angrier against the Harare commission for relocating the produce market then it is the residents of rich suburb of Ridgeview who woke one day to find an unsightly market on their doorstep.

Moosa Hassan, spokesman for the Old Ridgeview Residents Association, said residents feared an increase in crime and a decline in the value of their properties.

"Residents are worried that the location of the market will attract criminals to the area," he said, complaining that hordes of vendors and vagrants now take shortcuts through Ridgeview and Belvedere suburbs from the high-density suburbs to get to the open market at the City Sports Centre

"You should see how the whole area has turned into an eyesore overnight to appreciate the residents' concerns," he adds.

Hassan says the residents are worried that the produce market near their suburb could become a permanent feature following government's announcement that it is embarking on a $29 billion refurbishment of Mbare Musika.

"That kind of money implies it is going to take time to complete refurbishments and open Mbare Musika again," he says.

"We shudder to think what will happen to our properties if the market becomes a permanent feature," Hassan says.

Government has announced plans to establish and run similar farmer's markets in four working class suburbs. Permanent markets will be opened in Highfields, Hatcliffe, Dzivarasekwa and Mabvuku to ease congestion at Mbare. But this is a massive project that might take a little bit longer before it is completed.

"That scares us stiff," Hassan says.

"It means these markets will be sited within residential suburbs and (will result in) the same amount of filth and garbage that led to the closure of Mbare Musika in the first place.

We wonder whether this is legal, considering Harare has a development master-plan already in place," added the Ridgeview spokesman, no doubt speaking for many of the capital's ratepayers who have to endure the excess of a commission that is not accountable to them. - ZimOnline

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