Message from Street Vendors – Inga Ifwe?-through Laura Miti

Laura Miti

Lusaka Mayor Miles Emmanuel Bwalya Sampa

By Laura Miti

Walking past a group of vendors standing in a shop corridor in Kamwala yesterday, one asked after Pilato. I told them he was fine. Then he asked – ninshi tamutulandilako ifwe ba vendor? I was a little taken aback at that, so I stopped. Thus I found myself listening to some very pained and impassioned words. The vendors asked what Mayor Miles Sampa thinks they eat, if they are not allowed to sell. They complained bitterly about having to daily runaway from council police who confisticate their wares. Then they explained their frustrations. One said, these people want us to sell in the markets but they don’t understand our situation. This is how it works – most vendors will have all their capital in the few wares they are carrying. Umuntu kuti akawata ama belt yabili eyo aleshitisha pali K10 imo. Mayo K20 iyo ine e capital akwete. Epo alila. I was asked – how does someone whose total worth is less than a K100 afford to rent a market stand for K2500 and also pay the fees PF cadres charge? He asked why government was not thinking about the small vendor. He showed me his sack bags hanging on a wall. Moneni mayo, ine a capital iyo ine. Ama bag 5. He described how small time vendors are having to spend nights on the street because they have been evicted from their homes. He asked over and over why they had to suffer so much, when they could make a living if allowed to. Then he asked a by-the-way question. He wanted to know where the warehouse was in which Lusaka City Council stores all the goods confisticated from vendors since January. It must be packed to the roof, he said 😥.

Lusaka Vendors complain to Comrade Kasebamashila Kaseba on Independence Avenue on  Wednesday 21st March 2018 picture by Derrick Sinjela – Kwilanzi News Zambia

Long story short, there is major hardship among vendors that we cannot continue to ignore. From January, I have been amazed at how we as a country have just gotten on with life without asking how on earth the vendors removed from the streets are surviving. No one in authority has so much as articulated an understanding of the impact on thousands’ ability to live the decision to remove vendors has had. We have made it only about cleanliness. Any how let me to end by acknowledging that we are all agreed that we want clear clean streets. That selling should be in designated market places. But we also have to acknkwledge that we are not building the markets and, when we do, the Kamwala Vendors suggest the cost of doing business there keeps the majority out. So what happens to these people while we wait for affordable and structured markets to be built? There is no money for that is there? Truth is we have to wait for money to be freed from the buying of million dollar fire trucks, ambulances so expensive they probably alert themselves when there is a medical emergency, presidential jets, multi million dollar toll gates, orchrstrated bye electons. When will we get to markets when we still need to fund all those government priorities?

Kamwala Vendors in Lusaka

We need to make a plan for people’s survival now? If we do not have markets where PF cadres will not demand what small profits hapless vendors make, then let the vendors trade on the street while power holders make a plan for them.
Why can’t we declare some streets as vending zones? Build toilets, insist on some order. Why can’t vending be prevented on Cairo Rd but allowed on Chahacha Road, Freedom Way and Kamwala?
My simple question is what is government plan for the millions of Zambians whose only survival is small scale trading. In their own words the Kamwala vendors asked – inga ifwe, finshi batutontokanyapo?

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