Ward 1 councillor Mlandu Ncube says the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is still in the process of amending some of the colonial municipal by-laws which have become outdated.
By-laws are rules and regulations that govern activities and operations within local authorities.
Last year in an interview with Cite, Cllr Ncube stated that most of the city by-laws were crafted by the colonial government and needed to be repealed.
“If you check how the city was built, the colonisers wanted a situation where Bulawayo became their own heaven. The city was built for rich people and so the by-laws were anti-black being used by monarchies and big companies,” said Cllr Ncube then.
He said the city by-laws were not conducive and councillors were working on amending at least seven.
“We are working on amending the by-laws and our target is to amend seven to eight from the day we were elected up to July 2019,” Cllr Ncube said then.
He said then that the process to amend the vending and traffic by-laws was already in motion.
Did the councillors manage to amend at least seven of the city by-laws from the time they were elected until July 2019?
Cite fact-checked and found that the targeted city by-laws were yet be amended, however, the council has since approached the office of the Attorney General to begin the process of amending the city by-laws.
One of the by-laws submitted for amendment is the vending by-law.
The Bulawayo Vendors and Traders Association (BVTA) executive director Michael Ndiweni said the association is working together with the local authority to ensure the city hawkers and vending by-laws are amended.
“We have been actively engaged with BCC, we submitted our model law that we think is mutually beneficial. BCC reviewed our law and claimed its in line with their draft that they submitted and sent for approval,” said Ndiweni.
“We propose continuous stakeholder engagement and approval of the proposed changes by the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs of Zimbabwe.”
