Opinion By Kelvin Matore
For the first time in many years, Harare’s streets appear to be reclaiming some of the order and cleanliness that residents have long demanded.
The City of Harare’s latest operation to remove vendors from roadsides, pavements and other undesignated areas has cleared many busy spaces that had become congested with makeshift stalls, litter and uncontrolled pedestrian movement. Traffic is flowing more freely in some areas, pavements are becoming accessible again and the capital is beginning to look more like a city than an unplanned marketplace.
This is a positive development that should not be dismissed.
A clean city is good for public health, tourism, investment and the dignity of its residents. It also benefits formal businesses. Giant Supermarkets and other established retailers are reportedly experiencing improved sales as consumers return to conventional shopping spaces. The removal of illegal roadside trading has, in some areas, restored a more predictable trading environment and increased visibility for registered businesses.
For years, formal retailers have complained that they were operating under a heavy regulatory burden while informal traders sold goods directly outside their premises, often without paying comparable licence fees, rentals or taxes. The current clean-up has therefore helped create a sense that businesses are competing on a more even field.
But the appearance of a cleaner Harare should not blind us to the human cost of the operation.
Thousands of vendors depended on daily sales to feed their families, pay rent, send children to school and meet basic household expenses. For many of them, vending was not a lifestyle choice or an attempt to undermine the city’s planning regulations. It was the only source of income available in an economy where formal employment remains difficult to secure.
The cries from vendors must therefore be taken seriously. A person whose stock has been confiscated or whose trading place has been destroyed is not merely losing a stall. They may be losing the income that supports an entire household.
This is where the city’s approach must move beyond eviction and enforcement. Removing vendors without providing practical alternatives may produce clean streets in the short term, but it will not resolve the economic pressures that drive people into informal trading. Displaced vendors are likely to return to the streets, move to less visible areas or resort to more desperate methods of survival.
Harare needs a solution that protects public order while preserving livelihoods. The city should accelerate the establishment of properly designed vending zones and markets with access to sanitation, storage, water, security and affordable rentals. Vendors must be consulted in the planning of these spaces, rather than being treated only as offenders when enforcement begins.
There is also a need for transparent registration. Those who comply with municipal requirements should be given permits and clearly designated areas in which to operate. The city can then enforce its by-laws firmly against traders who refuse to comply, while protecting those who are making a genuine effort to work within the system.
Formal retailers, too, have a role to play. The reported improvement in sales should be welcomed, but large supermarkets should recognise that a strong economy cannot be built by pushing vulnerable traders further into poverty. Partnerships with vendor associations could create opportunities for local suppliers, small-scale producers and registered market traders to participate in formal retail value chains.
The debate should not be framed as supermarkets versus vendors. Harare needs both. It needs clean streets, functioning pavements and orderly commerce, but it also needs an economy that allows ordinary people to earn a living with dignity.
The city’s clean-up has demonstrated what is possible when authorities act decisively. The next test is whether that order can be sustained without turning thousands of working people into casualties of urban renewal.
A clean Harare is a worthy goal. But a truly successful city must be clean, orderly and humane. Its progress should be measured not only by the appearance of its streets or the sales figures of its biggest retailers, but also by whether its poorest residents can continue to work, feed their families and live with dignity.
