Return traders to markets, Mwewa urges council

NOEL IYOMBWA writes 

@SunZambian

ALLOWING the vendors to sell on the streets rather than in designated places is not the right way to enable people earn a living because it is endangering their lives from disease outbreaks, says Simoson director Simon Mwewa.

Mr Mwewa said in Lusaka yesterday that authorities must try and learn from the last cholera outbreak experienced in the capital city which had to take a deployment of military personnel to the Central Business District to control the situation.

He was reacting to the recent decision by the Lusaka City Council (LCC) to allow the vendors back on the streets of Lusaka after demands from some quarters for the local authority to stop harassing them.

“Removing the vendors from the streets does not mean the authority is stopping them from earning a living but to avoid outbreaks of diseases. It is therefore also pointless to relocate them to specific city roads as a preventive measure,” he said.

Mr. Mwewa observed that the solution to the problem lied in the people trading in designated markets.

Mr. Mwewa said the council decision to allow the vendors to trade along the Simon Mwewa Lane between16 hours and 20 hours could neither be the solution to the problem because the vendor would only stick to those trading hours for a while but later revert to their normal trading hours.

Mr. Mwewa, who is also Ubusaka Campaign Ambassador, said street vending deprived the local authority of the much-needed revenue because the people selling on the streets did not pay any rates.

He said the government is building more markets for people to trade in adding that street vending also deprives the local authority the much-needed revenue because

Mr. Mwewa has described the decision to allow the vendors back on the streets as retrogressive and appealed to it to rescind the decision.