Street vending must be legalised
Dear Editor,
ALMOST every research which has ever been carried out suggests that street vending should be legalised and factored into the developmental agenda.
It made a very sad reading on Saturday, October 23, 2021 when Ms Iness Munyeme, a woman in Kitwe was arrested and charged K200 for buying five bananas worth K10 from a street vendor.
This implies that only people with a lot of money to afford licences and own shops have the right to trade. It’s a world apart as we witness the rich getting richer and the poor subjected to conditions which can only make them poorer.
Street vending is an entry venture for the poor who are unemployed and sometimes with little or no education.
Therefore, outlawing this venture, which is ubiquitous in every developing nation across the globe, is not only abrogating the human right of the freedom to trade and compete openly but also not in tandem with the government’s developmental agenda of not leaving anyone behind. What a way to fight poverty!!
The official unemployment rate in Zambia is 11.4 percent. Statistics show that 80 percent of all employed people are in the informal sector and street vendors occupy about 70 percent of all non-agriculture informal jobs.
Street vending is ubiquitous – meaning, it’s everywhere, not only in Zambia, but the whole Africa and also predominant in other developing countries outside Africa.
No matter the number of policies and laws we can put up, it will still be there because street vending is an occupation mainly for the poor and vulnerable. Lack of adequate employment opportunities in the formal sector, a faster rate of urbanisation, and high poverty levels in Zambian cities have driven many citizens to seek a livelihood in the informal sector and street vending creates the only easy way of making a living for millions of Zambians.
It’s a very important employment opportunity for youths, women, anyone with very few resources and the least-skilled people. Based on measurement by the absolute moderate poverty line of US$3.10 per capita per day, 95 percent of all workers from poor households are informally employed while 75 percent of informal workers are from poor households.
Street vending is only regarded as a big problem because authorities want to get rid of it as opposed to coordinating and cooperating with stakeholders.
If authorities regarded street vending as a solution and a key factor in the micro economy and factored it in national development frameworks, the approach would change. Instead of outlawing street vending, the government should formulate policies aimed at formalising the venture.
This will turn vendors from being enemies of the state into partners and end the long war between vendors and authorities. Compliance levels would increase as street vendors would have the mentality that the government is looking out for their best interest.
Most of the resistance to policy direction and implementation by the government is due to the fact that street vendors think the government is being hard on them because they are poor and government officials don’t understand what they go through.
They think all that government wants to do is to get rid of them, so insecurity and uncertainty crops in because they don’t know what the future holds for them.
In Zambia, street traders are usually occasioned by confrontation with local authorities, and at the end they lose their products and money which they had spent months or even years building in a blink of an eye. So they usually buy their freedom by bribing council officials to survive.
Street vending although categorised as part of small and medium scale enterprise, it has never received the legal and policy recognition it deserves. Policies of the informal economy should take into account the nuances and heterogeneity of the sector, in that, governments should come up with more inclusive policies that will accommodate all traders according to their practical needs and not perceived needs such as building formal market infrastructure for all.
In any business, accessibility to customers is key, more especially for street traders, that is why this direction has failed to work for many years.
The inclusion of street vendors into the national developmental agenda should begin with the issuance of IDs and prescription of a uniform. Selling of IDs by the government will raise a lot of revenue for local councils. IDs should contain the name of the vendor, phone number, and address.
Producing such IDs will allow authorities to have an account of all the vendors and hence will reduce criminality and tax evasion because just entering their NRC or ID number would bring all the relevant information about them including tax compliance. This would also increase the confidence levels which customers would have in them because they would know that should they be tricked into buying defective products, the vendors could easily be traced. Having a uniform will make it easy for easy recognition both by authorities and customers as people who are complying with the law and cooperating with government institutions.
Such interventions will also increase confidence levels with financial institutions and will be easier for them to access financial services such as loans. This will also make it easier for the government to provide empowerment such as capital or skills development because they will be dealing with an organised informal sector.
Some people are worried about the congestion of street vendors in pedestrian facilities, street vendors will be free to operate anywhere but not everywhere. They will be operating in designated locations.
This system will increase compliance levels and reduce vices like throwing of litter anyhow. It will also reduce theft because only genuine street vendors such as hawkers will attract customers.
Street vendors and shop owners have always coexisted and have always both made profit, in fact a lot of street vendors are agents for shop owners. Besides that, a lot of people still prefer to buy items from shops as opposed to vendors.
Having such a system will also be good for street vendors because it will give them an ability to negotiate for a better pay as an agent and will be good for shop owners as it will attract customers for their agents.
With high compliance levels, this will increase adherence to hygiene and reduce transmission of diseases like cholera or dysentery.
Having such interventions will also cushion vendors against easy vote-buying tactics of fluctuating political rhetoric’ involving periods of tolerance and intolerance when the country’s elections loom around the corner.
This is a major policy turnaround, offering to remove the hardships and lack of freedom of street vendors and to unleash their economic potential.
The challenges which street vendors face are caused by the fact that municipal planning continue to be influenced by western thinking hence they do not provide vending zones for street traders.
In countries such as India and Tanzania where street vending is viewed as an asset, a more inclusive urban planning approach is taken, legislation governing street trade is significant and clear in its focus: to reduce poverty, to regulate street vending, and to empower street vendors.
The right to trade and the right to carry on a business is universal and the government cannot abrogate that law by outlawing street vending. Economic liberty stipulate that outlawing street vending violate principles of free and open trade and competing and is tantamount to discrimination and encroachment on individual human rights.
Despite simplification of licensing procedures in recent years, becoming properly registered in line with existing business, financial, and tax laws on national and municipal levels remains a tiresome and costly process, making compliance almost impossible for people with small capital such as street vendors.
This is an area that needs to be looked at as authorities factors in street traders to make it easy for them to comply with tax and licence payments.
The government and relevant stakeholders need to understand holistically the challenges faced by street vendors and develop interventions that will enable street vendors to survive, grow and compete in a dynamic business environment.
National and municipal administrations, on the other hand, should reconcile vendors’ needs with formal regulatory frameworks as well as with taxation and urban planning policies.
One sad part is that vendors associations in in Zambia which are present almost in all trading places, however, do not deal with licensing, vending sites and policy advocacy but focus mostly on welfare issues.
Had their advocacy been in that direction, we could have seen a more conducive economic environment for street traders. Associations should change their focus and aims to fight for the rights of street vendors.
Legalising street vending will be beneficial both to the government CHISHIMBA,
President – Association of Unemployed Youths.
Author
