Vendors just got a new defender

Let's play a guessing game. Guess who emphatically warned the mighty Zimbabwe Republic Police not to harass vendors? Is it Japhet Moyo the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions Secretary General? Or perhaps Mai Chisamba the people-centred talk show host? Or maybe it was Alick Macheso the people's favourite artist? Or could it be the first lady herself?

Pause for thought. Take your time. Now, state your pick.

Sorry folks, it's not Japhet, (though he should be speaking out more in defence of our embattled vendors) but it's the first lady. Yes, she did it. Told them in no uncertain terms, "Mapurisa please mapurisa… ngatiregerei kutorera vanhu zvinhu zvazvo" (police please police… desist from confiscating people's goods.)

We wait to see the full effect of this warning though we won't be holding our breath for urgent change. It's hard to believe though, that a renowned world class shopper with documented exquisitely high end tastes could possibly understand the defenceless state of our vendors. It's even harder to believe that chief amongst the myriad threats to vendors livelihoods are the constant threats, harassments and property seizures frequently orchestrated by our very own Republic Police and their counterparts in the Municipal Police. It matters less to them that vendors are predominantly defenceless citizens striving to earn a living in a harsh economy as it does that the imposition of archaic council by-laws present opportunities for some police officers to loot with impunity.

Whereas vendors have become the vanguard of Zimbabwe's informal economy sustaining the health, education and welfare needs of the majority of the population, they do so without recognition, support or protection from a State that disproportionately invests more in the formal economy and draws resources away from the poor through drastic cuts in public service delivery, corruption and taxation. In many ways vending has come to represent not only a lifeline for many people struggling to make headway in an economy that bleeds jobs but the preferable lifestyle for generations long convinced of the futility of writing an application letter for a job. After all, the few that are fortunate to be in formal employment are either not getting paid at all or are not getting paid on time.

In political terms the fate of the vendors has become a landmine of sorts for a regime that once destroyed hundreds of thousands of so-called illegal shelters and places of work under Operation Murambatsvina for the purposes of restoring order. This time it's no longer feasible to restore order without first creating alternatives for people's livelihoods. Crowded disorderly streets with commerce are definitely preferable to crowded disorderly streets with turmoil. Hence the default position seems for politicians to oscillate between giving token incentives to vendors and restraining law enforcement from implementing existing laws that are hostile to the very existence of the current vendor class. Embrace the vendor seems to be the catch phrase and the first lady certainly got the memo.

We could perhaps take solace from the fact that the message has finally reached upstairs; that this country, this nation of vendors, requires high-level protection from the police. But that will only be a start; what this nation of vendors needs is job creating economic growth and poverty reducing redistributive policies. In Zim Asset terms it's the 2.2 million jobs and improved public service delivery that we need.

I am curious though as to just how the message reached upstairs. I mean: it’s hard to imagine the typical Shef bargain hunting downtown from table to table, negotiating prices. And since it's highly unlikely that the first lady witnessed for herself the deplorable conditions that vendors earn their living I thought it prudent for us to take her on a trip downtown - a sort of meet the vendors mini trip if you don't mind. We could have gone to Mbare Musika but we are told the crowd control requirements would distort her from getting a good view of the vendor in natural habitat.

And so we drop out of the stately presidential limousine aka Zim1 at Copacabana terminus, (big Phil would not lend us that $500 000 egotistic monstrosity of a Hummer Limousine on account of the occasion not being glamorous enough). Thankfully Zim1 has space to spare and we did not have to sit four-four and nobody had to stick out the front a bit, or wiggle in to make room. And, yes, Mr Briggs we did not feel a single pothole. No more questions - we have an important person to take on tour.

The first thing that hits you when you arrive downtown is the complex medley of competing voices, cajoling, haggling, announcing and persuading in some of the most spirited tones witnessed in the history of making a sell. The competition is fierce. Most people are vendors in some way or the other selling to the next person who is also trying to sell. It's the second hand vendors for example at corner Speke and Cameron that take the prize for animation as they jump and shout all day to keep small crowds engaged long enough to check their wares. Only through them does the term dollar-for-two assume a musical tone attracting waves of crowds all day to gobble up all sorts of clothes from used underwear to shoes. A distant second are the insect poison vendors with their hailers on repeat with such creative messages as "you are the landlord not the roaches so claim your house back." Perhaps a fitting metaphor for what has occurred over the past few years, the massive occupation of open spaces by vendors. They are now the landlords of the streets and doubt if they will be eager to leave without viable alternative being put in place.

There is literally no more walking room on the streets of downtown Harare and most other cities too. Everywhere you turn is a vendor with goods on the floor or a makeshift table doing the business of surviving. The distance between Albion Street and Robert Mugabe street along Chinhoyi street for example is home to an average 30 vendors selling an assortment of goods ranging from fresh produce spread on the floor, to hand made shoes, to small electrical goods. Others like Mai Jessy will have various toiletry items including skin lightening crèmes and libido boosting tablets plus ideas on how to improve skin tone and performance in bed to share.

Those are just the regulars; time and again someone with some goods to sell will pick an empty spot and trade for the day. It's truly an open market. There is space too for those with special skills like auto-electricians installing car radios whilst you wait or cell phone technicians who can fix any phone. These skills honed in a formal setting somewhere, are found on the streets amongst hundreds of thousands others retrenched, displaced or let go and now at the street's disposal at a fraction of their true worth. Accompanying these vendors in some instances are toddlers who have made the street a second home and will soon make it their place of work just as they found it: crowded, without toilets, without protection and without security but still better than staying at home.

Calling the police off will certainly help. But the true defenders of the vendors will focus on doing things that grow the economy, things that create new jobs and things that meaningfully protect the rights of those that will choose to remain vendors.

[With thoughts of Itai Dzamara and all those victimised for exercising their right to speak. #bringbackItai">

*Fambai Ngirande writes what he likes.

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