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Vendors always part of third world streets
Marko Phiri
May 24, 2005

People who watched Zimbabwe Television before the government did away with a semblance of good programming will recall United Nations documentaries featuring the lives of people living in Third World countries. From countries in the West Indies to poor Asian countries to African capitals, the urban zones were ever crowded with people selling all kinds of wares, and some of the overcrowding and filth was just overwhelming. It became for us who watched these documentaries a yardstick of how "ahead" Zimbabwe was from other developing nations in terms of clean streets and infrastructural development. But of major interest is what would be a widespread feature of many capital cities of the so-called developing nations - the ubiquitous vendors.

During a visit to Malawi a few years ago, one could not help but be shocked by the wares people sold by the roadsides in the country’s commercial capital, Blantrye, and hungry customers could still be seen stooping and poking strange looking food as they purchased their lunch. And such stories are still being told by recent visitors to that country. These conditions have become accepted as an ineluctable part of the socio-cultural mosaic of Third World countries, and some folks have been known to shun regular jobs in the formal sector as they see vending providing them better subsistence.

Zimbabwe’s streets in every urban area are littered with men, women and children selling a variety of wares, and many of us will confess that this is the money that sent us to school. But the latest development that has seen the government suddenly finding criminality in these hard working people trying to earn themselves an honest living makes a mockery of their hardships. After purging the streets of vendors, what then are they supposed to turn to at a time the economy is shrinking and not creating any jobs that these people would then supposedly turn to for livelihood?

Many will recall the time the Queen came to Zimbabwe some years back, and the government made sure it swept the streets of urchins lest the British monarch saw the failures of Zimbabwe’s first black government. The streets again were cleaned of vendors and urchins when the country hosted the All-Africa Games as part of attempts to present the country to visitors as worthy of hosting such a big event. It was not going to do the country any good if the people who came in were met with abject poverty when the country had already claimed to have ample resources to play to host to such an enterprise. And this was back when unemployment was steadily rising.

Today however, independent analysts and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions put unemployment at close to 80 percent, but the Central Statistical Office maintains radically disparate figures it brings questions about the CSO’s source of statistics. The Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions perhaps? Government officials claim the informal sector and the farming sector are now the country’s major employers. Herbert Murerwha was on TV during the run-up to the election with his party’s electoral promises saying – and without bating an eyelid - that the land reform programme had opened up employment opportunities for many Zimbabweans and had become one of the country’s major employers. But the Reserve Bank governor has said the country needs experienced farmers back, so it would mean there isn’t much farming activity going on to give people jobs as claimed by government officials.

Since the coming of the MDC, urban residents have become the bane of the ruling party, thus small wonder the latest clashes with the vendors. Of interest in contemporary Zimbabwe is that almost everybody has becoming an enterprising businessperson, seeing opportunity where others seen gloom and doom. From gainfully employed men and women with what only a few years ago were enviable jobs, they all spend time trying to figure out how they will augment their salaries. A good number of teachers in Bulawayo have found life as cross-border traders buying goods from South Africa and Botswana to sell here. Everybody seems to be into buying and selling: anything.

Now, with the government crack down on vendors, that is the visible who line the streets, is there any logic then that this will succeed considering the less visible are also making ends meet through these same means? But one can trust this regime to engage what others pejoratively called voodoo policies that have no relation to reality as experienced by the people here. Solutions seem to lie in outlawing honest living not the core issues that have fed the proliferation of those activities the regime seeks to curb.

One recalls America’s prohibition era where the government sought to outlaw alcohol. Street wise men like Al Capone made a killing as they responded to public demand for alcohol. The Prohibition was thus set to fail. So what will make this latest clampdown on vendors here succeed? In Bulawayo local government police run battles with vendors each day, but as soon as they turn their backs, the vendors are back doing business. Solutions do not lie in taking out government failures on the people but broader issues that have fed everything from parallel market foreign currency trading to the shortages of basic food commodities. That is where the government’s real fight resides.

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