By Ndumiso Tshuma
There are around 5 000 informal traders working in Bulawayo’s Central Business District (CBD) causing a ‘headache’ for the local authority who have to recognise the need by the unemployed to survive while making sure the city is kept clean, the mayor, David Coltart, has said.
Colatrt revealed this figure during the Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving at Large City Hall on Tuesday, when he stated the city needs to establish suitable market infrastructure for informal traders, who were selling on the streets, not out of choice, but out of necessity.
“Many of us who go to Fifth Avenue see the plight of some 5 000 people across our city ,who are there not because they want to be there but because they have been forced out of formal employment and they are in the informal sector now and are desperate,” said the mayor.
“ Many of these folks are single mothers. Their children rely on these folks to sell vegetables and other goods. As a city we have to achieve a balance.”
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The balance referred to by the mayor was to “keep the city clean” and also make sure it “combats possible cholera outbreaks.’
“But at the same time we have to ensure that we look after the most vulnerable people in our society and the most vulnerable are informal vendors,” Coltart said.
The mayor said the local authority has started to make progress with Egodini and was grateful to God “in many ways.”
“I think it’s miraculous, it (Egodini) was dead in the water and I want to tell you, I don’t take any credit for that, I did nothing special to get that underway. I view it as the Lord’s work,” Coltart said.
“Truly within a week the contractors decided they were going to come back in and start working on it and that’s given us a vision of other markets around the periphery of the city and further markets in the high density suburbs.”
Colart urged people to pray specifically that work will continue at Egodini and for the city to raise funds needed for the extra markets.
“And that we might be able to address the plight of the informal sector so that we will be able to give them an attractive area in which to work so that they are not affected by the heat and the rain and that their children don’t have to run in the streets,” he said.
“And that they have access to water and electricity and good toilets so that they can be human beings again. Pray specifically for that and at the same time let us give thanks that Egodini is going and making progress.”
