Vendors defy police ban and march to Parliament

Hundreds of informal traders operating at undesignated sites in Harare on Wednesday defied a police ban and breached an anti-riot police barricade as they marched towards Parliament where they presented a petition demanding to be allowed to continue selling their wares in the central business district.

The march proceeded after vendors won a High Court order allowing them to present a petition to Parliament seeking the postponement of their removal.

The vendors handed over a petition outlining their grievances to the clerk of Parliament where they highlighted issues such as alternative vending sites, affordable charges for the alternative vending sites as well as access to markets at the alternative vending sites.

Speaking during the march Zimbabwe Vendors Union National Director Mr Samuel Wadzai said they were not going to move from the CBD on Friday.

“We ask Government not to chase us away from the streets because this is how we are able to feed our families. Our lives are in the streets and we make a living from selling,” he said.

“We are peaceful vendors who just want to be heard by the relevant authorities. We will not move until they finish constructing alternative vending sites for us.”

Some of the vendors could be heard hurling insults at police officers who attempted to block the march.

“You want to start a war by what you are doing. Do you know that the Tunisia uprising was started by a vendor?

“Your wives and girlfriends are vendors, but you are being used to fight them, why? Are you not ashamed of yourselves,” charged one of the vendors.

Bulawayo East MP Tabitha Khumalo (MD-T) later joined the vendors and challenged the government to provide the 2,2 million jobs Zanu PF promised in the run-up to the 2013 harmonised elections.

“As the MDC-T party, we are saying in the 2013 elections, you promised the people 2,2 million jobs, but up to today, not even one has been provided,” she said.

“What we are saying is give these people jobs and if you can’t give them, protect them as vendors and stop victimising them.”

See pictures from the march