Bulawayo mayor David Coltart has thrown his weight behind calls to give municipal police arresting powers to tackle the growing mess created by vendors along Fifth Avenue.
Coltart told Southern Eye that the ball is now in the court of Local Government minister Daniel Garwe, who has proposed empowering municipal police to enforce by-laws more effectively.
He noted that vendors along Fifth Avenue have become a major headache.
“The city was never designed to have thousands of vendors in the middle of the city,” he said.
“There is resistance from vendors as we seek to enforce by-laws. The challenge is that municipal police do not have powers of arrest.”
“If that happens, we will be able to enforce our by-laws better.”
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However, Bulawayo Vendors Traders Association director Michael Ndiweni called for a multi-stakeholder meeting to resolve the Fifth Avenue contradiction once and for all.
“It is true that people self-designate themselves; that is not desirable,” Ndiweni said.
“There should be a balance between trading and upholding by-laws.”
Ndiweni also raised alarm over “space barons” allegedly collecting protection fees from traders along Fifth Avenue, with nothing benefiting the city.
“Some people have become space barons. There are allegations of people collecting money on the pretext of protection fees, but the council is not benefiting anything from that,” he said.
Ndiweni, however, warned that the current situation where rubbish piles up from food vending is neither sustainable nor hygienic.
The chairman of the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association, Steven Nkomo, acknowledged that control measures are still needed to bring some vendors to order.
In street interviews, residents say they are tired of navigating through rubbish and illegal stalls in the central business district.