GOVERNMENT’S widely publicised ban on night vending faltered the very moment it was announced.
From the outset, it was an ill-conceived policy, detached from the social and economic realities that define life in today’s Zimbabwe.
There were no safety nets in place for those affected.
No alternative livelihoods offered, no provision for relocation, no compensation — just another decree from above targeting the poor for trying to survive.
It is no secret that industry is dead.
The once-bustling factories of Harare, Bulawayo and other industrial towns now host churches, small workshops, and plastic manufacturing and recycling operations.
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The hum of machinery has been replaced by the faint buzz of informal trade.
The much-touted economic growth remains a mirage, visible only in speeches and official statistics, not in the lives of ordinary people.
In this economic wasteland, vending has become a lifeline.
Many of those who once worked in formal employment — factory hands, clerks, machine operators — now earn their bread under streetlights and makeshift stalls.
They are not criminals; they are casualties of a system that no longer works.
For many, vending at night is not a matter of choice, but of survival.
The heat and harassment of the day make it nearly impossible for the old and frail to compete with younger vendors or to escape the cat-and-mouse chases with municipal police.
Under the cover of darkness, they sell fruits, vegetables, airtime and snacks — small acts of economic defiance that feed families and pay school fees.
Then came the government’s ban on night vending — a policy as tone-deaf as it is impractical.
To outlaw night vending is to outlaw hunger’s antidote.
It is to punish the poor for the State’s failure to provide jobs, housing and basic social protection.
Authorities justify the ban on grounds of “public order”, “cleanliness” and “safety”.
These concerns are legitimate — cities need structure and hygiene — but they are meaningless when pursued through coercion rather than compassion.
Urban order cannot be achieved by criminalising poverty.
It must begin with an understanding of why people vend in the first place.
The informal sector is not an inconvenience; it is the backbone of the economy.
The International Labour Organization estimates that more than 70% of Zimbabweans survive through informal work.
Banning vending — day or night — without offering alternatives is akin to cutting off the nation’s oxygen supply.
A responsible government would start by engaging vendors’ associations, city councils and local communities to design inclusive solutions — designated vending zones, improved lighting, waste management systems, and microfinance support.
The goal should be regulation, not eradication.
Instead, we witness the old reflex of command politics: ban first, think later.
The result is predictable — chaos, resistance and deepening mistrust between the governed and those who govern.
Zimbabwe’s crisis is not merely economic; it is moral and imaginative.
Policies such as the night vending ban reveal a government unable or unwilling to see the world through the eyes of the poor.
Development cannot come through decrees that trample on dignity.
It comes from policies rooted in empathy, dialogue, and realism.
In the end, the ban on night vending will fail, not because vendors are defiant, but because the law itself is divorced from lived reality.
Hunger has no curfew and poverty does not keep office hours.
Until the State learns to govern with both heart and head, it will continue to mistake survival for defiance, and punishment for progress.