Bulawayo Chamber Secretary, Sikhangele Zhou, says the city council has been forced to upgrade municipal security uniforms to include helmets after vendors attacked the guards with stones when they were trying to restore order on the streets.
This decision, according to Zhou, was made after one of the municipal security guards, popularly known as oMakokoba, was hit on the head and had to be taken to a neurosurgeon for treatment.
Helmets will be added to the security uniform to prevent such injuries, said the chamber secretary during a recent consultative meeting with political parties on cleaning and maintaining order in Bulawayo.
Currently municipal officers were caps similar to those of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP).
“In our last operation, our security guards were beaten up, so we have citizens who don’t respect the law. They threw stones at them and while my uniform does not include a helmet for security guards, I have since introduced the helmet because the last time I took one of the guards to a neurosurgeon because they were hit in the head,” Zhou said.
She stated that consultation with political parties was critical because the illegal vendors were members of various political formations.
“This consultation is being held so that we can all instill the same values. People are led by different parties and we must instill law and order and rule of law. This is why we are saying, we know sometimes vendors drop names of political parties not because they are sanctioned by the political parties but they misuse the name of the political party. They can be your member but you didn’t ask them to do that,” said the chamber secretary.
Zhou highlighted that any place needed rule of law in order to be governable, which was also what the City of Bulawayo desired in terms of clearing the streets of illegal vending.
“This is why we asked political parties to be here so that we work together because when you want to govern the country, city or your place, you don’t want to find it ungovernable. Political parties are looking for governance and don’t want to find an ungovernable people so we thought all of you have an interest in making the city governable,” she said.
“How will you rule, if all of us are ungovernable? Let’s nip this (lawlessness) in the bud now. Let’s help each other now so that it doesn’t grow out of hand.”
The chamber secretary also said the city council had engaged the vending groups, who knew that their membership had to formally apply for vending spaces.
“We started engagements with vendors on Friday and we have advised them how to apply. They know how to apply and we have engaged various groups so that if you are in that group. you know,” Zhou said.
Former Cowdray Park Councillor, Collet Ndlovu, who participated in the engagement, stated that police should be called in to assist municipal guards in restoring the rule of law because the BCC lacked arresting powers.
“We can’t run Bulawayo like a growth point. It’s surprising how when there is a Mthwakazi event, police are heavily deployed but they can’t help on matters like this one where council guards are beaten up while at work,” he said.
“Since council doesn’t have arresting powers, it needs joint efforts with the police than for them to flood political events, where one even wonders where all these police come from due to their large numbers. Council must not go alone to restore order but involve the police to clean Bulawayo because they have powers to arrest.”
