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Informal sector should be properly regulated
Harare Residents Trust (HRT)
September 21, 2009

The Harare Residents Trust (HRT) is urging the government to properly regulate the informal sector to ensure that proper facilities and a conducive operating environment is put in place to promote the conduct of business in this sector.

Vendors and other players in the informal economy have played a significant role to sustain their poverty-stricken families but have constantly been arrested by municipal police and other law enforcement agencies when selling their wares and products along roadsides and other places in high density areas.

It is important for the authorities to realise that arresting vendors and confisticating their wares is not the solution but only helps to worsen the situation. It is a symptom of deepening poverty and a breakdown in the social fabric.

More than 5 million people in Zimbabwe are operating in the informal sector but they do not have proper support structures to help them undertake their businesses. Currently Zimbabwe has an unemployment rate of close to 80 percent with less than 600 000 people in informal employment, according the Labour Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ).

It is high time the government realises that the informal economy has helped rescue the economy from near collapse during the past 10 years and therefore those operating in this sector should be given incentives such as affordable trading licences and permits.

In as much as the HRT does not want to promote chaos in and around the City of Harare by encouraging vendors to sell their wares everywhere the city fathers should as a matter of urgency open more accessible places where these vendors could undertake their business. In the city centre, small people's market places where people sell fruits and other items should be established on open spaces as a way of curbing illegal vending in Harare.

Zimbabwe should draw lessons from such countries as Ghana and South Africa which have established a well regulated informal economy where people operate in a conducive environment. This has positively contributed towards poverty reduction in urban communities and at house hold level in these countries in line with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

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