D-Day for Maputo street vendors

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D-Day for Maputo street vendors

12:59 CAT | 12 Mar 2020

Photo: Noticias

The decision has been made, the deadline set, and today is the day when Maputo’s estimated 4,000 street traders must vacate the sidewalks once and for all, in culmination of a mobilisation and awareness-raising process initiated in May of last year.

Instead, they are to occupy the 4,766 stalls and kiosks made available by Maputo Municipality in the 65 markets scattered across the country’s capital.

The municipality’s efforts are aimed at recovering urban aesthetics, compromised by the unruly business of used-clothing, crockery, school supplies, electronics and vegetable trading, and even the cooking and selling of fast food on the sidewalks, a phenomenon which has, over the years, gained its own “body and soul” on the streets of Maputo.

Maputo Municipal Council spokesperson Albertina Tivane at a press conference yesterday called on all informal traders to vacate their inappropriate business places voluntarily, so as to avoid compulsory measures to enforce the decision.

Tivane pointed out that Maputo has 65 municipal markets, each with teams in place ready assist the street vendors in relocating, and reiterated that the municipality had listened to informal traders so as to minimise the inconvenience of this reorganisation to the sector.

“The Maputo City Council is not against informal sellers, as the activity contributes to the income of many families, as well as to the city’s economy. Instead, it intends to organise informal operators, not only to guarantee their safety, but as to maintain the beauty of the city,” she explained.

Tivane said the municipality did not want to use force to remove vendors from the streets, but warned that it would adopt all measures necessary to implement its decision.

“Unfortunately, informal trading is a danger to the vendors themselves. For example, not long ago, one person died and others were injured in the Zimpeto neighbourhood,” she said.

According to Tivane, the country’s capital currently has about 4,000 street vendors, of whom 2,300 are based in the ‘Baixa’ [central business district], and another 300 on the sidewalks and carriageways of Praça dos Combatentes Square and other inappropriate places, chiefly in Zimpeto.

Source: Noticias