LUSAKA Province Minister Japhen Mwakalombe says the removal of street vendors from the streets is unsustainable because it does not achieve the desired results.
Mr Mwakalombe said the removal of the vendors had in the recent past proved to be unsuccessful because it had not yielded the intended result.
He said in an interview in Lusaka on Tuesday the vendors would be allowed to continue trading on the streets until a lasting solution was found.
“Many street vendors were worried about being removed but through our studies we have discovered the removal of people from the streets is not sustainable in any way as it does not achieve the intended purpose,” Mr Mwakalombe said.
He said street vendors would not be removed from the CBD but would be required to keep their trading surroundings clean at all times.
Mr Mwakalombe said through the partnership between the Lusaka provincial administration and the street vendors, the traders had agreed to conduct daily clean-up exercises in their respective trading places.
“Through the launch of a relationship between the provincial administration and the street vendors this will ensure that cleanliness in the central business district is improved and maintained,” Mr Mwakalombe said.
He said each shop in the CBD was required to have proper disposal bins and that constant inspections through the provincial administration would be carried out to ensure owners were adhering to the regulation.
And Paul Mbewe, a vendor on Nkwazi Road, said he would ensure that he enforces the directive to clean trading slots.
Mr Mbewe said it is important for each vendor to own a broom which they should use to keep their surroundings clean.
“We are happy that we will not be removed from the streets. We will work together with Government to keep the streets of Lusaka clean. As earlier stated by Mr Mwakalombe, we will clean our surroundings in the morning and evening,” he said.
what an 1D10T! I guess to you silly honorable lusaka looks so beautiful. what kind of foolishness is this where anybody can set up a ntemba ANYWHERE they wish?? one cant even navigate properly through lumumba or freedom way or indeed the corridors of cairo road. USELESS
Is it possible for postman to deliver letters or parcels to businesses in Lusaka, through all those vendors?
Remove them, people are creative they will venture in something else.
Its this type of thinking that is causing accidents….these corrupt Grade 12 politicans interfering…what is sustainable about streetvending when they are in the black market and dont contribute anything to the council but filth.
shallow thinking…
Just remove them you moron. If Kitwe and Chingola have done so what is so special about street vendors in Lusaka. The capital city looks pathetic and you fools are perpetuating illegality and promoting uncivilized behavior. When we tell you that this lungu is up to no good you don’t listen.
If removing vendors is unstainable in Lusaka, how have Livingstone, Chingola, and Kitwe managed to do it?
Anyway Mwakalombe has proved to be one of the Foo1ish 5tupid 1diots we have in this country… If removing street vendors from the streets does not bring desired results then which desired results does street vending bring
the desired result is cleanliness and law and order. it is against the laws to trade on the street period.
Ba mmd chief bootlicjer, what kind of memorabilia can you sell on the streets of lusaka?
If removing vendors is unsustainable in Lusaka, how have Livingstone, Chingola, and Kitwe managed to do it?
We are talking about sustainability , thick head. Root cause, root cause and not window dressing happening in other cities. Washington, London, Berlin,Paris, Zürich has street vendors , those people you sell you tourist memorabilia on the street in the west, ..what do you call them
Wait a minute!
You need to be careful when you make comparisons!
The places you are talking about have licensed venders who have to pay to obtain a trading permit with specific restrictions on where you can trade, times, and what you can sell!
With strict council and police enforcement.
That being the case you never find people selling michopo in Oxford Street or salaula near tower bridge.
You need to control people otherwise you have a situation where anybody wants to sell anything anywhere anytime anyhow without permits or regard for the law.
That is unacceptable.
MMD Chief Bootlicker,
Please avoid using insulting language by referring to me as “thick head”. Thankfully more enlightened brains can can tell who is a thick head between the two of us. Travel anywhere in the civilized world and you won’t find the kind of anarchic vending that you are trying to glorify. Any type of vending in places like New York or Philadelphia or London is properly regulated by byelaws and licensing. There is no way you will find someone selling fly-infested offals and breams any where near Madison Square Gardens without being charged with some environmental offence!
Even the word Unsustainable is misapplied. Clean the City is what we want how you do it is your homework.
does this guy realize that shop owners in town pay taxes & rates to the council which his vendors don’t? PF should start behaving like they are in power by doing the right things. some leaders within PF are still behaving like they are in opposition. people will not remember u for mediocrity for the right & bold decisions you made as a leader. Mwakalombe has just made a serious technical mistake on his political career. he may have succeeded in exciting the vendors but he has just nailed his political career. Look at Kitwe mayor, young and vibrant, professional and able to differentiate critical issues. I for one stands ready to support such fellow youths & not the likes of Mwakalombe. Vendors are not the only Zambians, even those people running legal shops & their employees are Zambians
What is the ministers definition of Cleanliness? Those eyesore of makeshifts, lack of public toilets, risks of waterborne diseases, Beer, meat and fresh vegetables sold openly, vendors urinating in Chibuku empty packs?
MMD Chief Bootlicker
Washington, London, Berlin, Paris or Zurich has no street vendors making these cities dirty as Zambian Bomas.
This notion was the same made by late president Chiluba that in Britain all council houses were sold to sitting tenants – LIE. PF government has no capacity/vision to solve street vending, remember much of PF leadership came from street vending.
Lol, FTJ was a reformer. He was a damn good president!
It is just the fear of the upcoming bye elections and meant to protect Margaret Mwanakatwe’s re election bid.
Of course removing street vendors is sustainable. What is lacking is the political will. Those people selling different merchandise on the streets have somewhere where they came from. Why can’t they simply go back to where they came from? Kitwe is looking beautiful. Kudos to his worship the mayor of Kitwe. Lusaka must emulate it.
Bootlicker. Indeed you are a shameless bootlicker with a a brain of a pea. We want sanity and promote cleanliness in our cities especially Lusaka. If you go to Kitwe, you will even feel a breath of fresh air in town and you will be amazed at how dilapidated these towns have become because of street vending. The owners of these shops and companies in these towns will have to part away with extra money just to paint and renovate the destruction done by vendors, nonsense.
TOILETS, TOILETS!
Mr Minister, I am shocked that you can make such a statement.
The political dilemma exists but it is not insurmountable. Government policy needs to discourage street vending. The policy of government needs to target vendor free cities by 2023. This can be achieved by bottom-up intervention measures, including agricultural skills, engineering skills, commercial skills, religious skills, tourism skills, manufacturing skills, industrial skills, teaching skills, health related skills, environmental skills, governance skills, military skills, police skills, etc.
Don’t call him minister or honourable. He is just a st00pit id10t from the streets. And he thinks tourists will com to his stinking streets
This Minister is a big let down. The issue of vendors is very sustainable . The laws on vending are sitting in Council offices but its people like mwakalombe who tend to disable the councils from doing the right things. Let the council come up with designated trading places if the established markets are inadequate. All vendors and marketeers alike are supposed to get market licences and/or hawkers licences for vendors. Any vending conducted in undesignated places would attract prohibitive levies. Its that simple.
I think this is the most useless minister to be part of the Cabinet. He is very retrogressive – You only find such street vendors in Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe just to mention a few countries I have visited in the neighbourhood. Go to Namibia or Botswana and see how clean their streets are. In Botswana, in particular, I was feeling ashamed on my own to the point that I could not even drop a cigarette butt on the ground because all streets in Gaborone were so tidy. In Lusaka corridors you have to walk in a single file as though you are in Military training just because all corridors have been swallowed by vendors – you can’t even access shop entrances with ease!!!
Now we have this honourable of a minister bringing backwardness – May be he started his political career by street vending…
These are the ministers our late President Sata referred to as useless mwebantu.
The only solution to Zambian problems is the Registrar of societies to deregister PF. Where is Andeleki to act? This party in power is full of illegalities. The only people they consider to be Zambians are people breaking the Law. How can the ruling party be surrounded by all Law breakers e.g. Mazhandu claiming as sponsor of PF, Kambwili claiming as architect & founder member of PF, Mmembe claims to have single handedly ushered PF into govt, Mwakalombe & Davies Mwila claim vendors & cadres are only Zambians who voted for PF, Inonge Wina only considers Civil Servants. We need leaders who embrace all citizens’ needs, vendors, busineess people, employees, unemployed, etc. Is it ok for a doctor to report late & neglect patients due to traffic congestion caused by blocked roads by vendors?
Can’t read this article this minister is too negative and I feel he is a street vendor and I wonder where we can go with such a man.
I, Terrible, do hereby proclaim that I have today 2 February 2017 added the so called minister to the list of Donkeys. What is the donkey doing in government? Depicts a very bad picture of His Excellent Chagwa Lungu.
Every sane Zambian must demand that the President removes this sorry sight from Cabinet. We are the President’s employers so he must heed our demand, forthwith!
MMD Chief Bootlicker,
Please avoid using insulting language by referring to me as “thick head”. Thankfully more enlightened brains can can tell who is a thick head between the two of us. Travel anywhere in the civilized world and you won’t find the kind of anarchic vending that you are trying to glorify. Any type of vending in places like New York or Philadelphia or London is properly regulated by byelaws and licensing. There is no way you will find someone selling fly-infested offals and breams any where near Madison Square Gardens without being charged with some environmental offence!
Shallow thinking indeed. Doesn’t Mwakalombe know that it’s part of his job to find a lasting solution to this problem. Lusaka CBD is dirty, the streets are overcrowded and there is a lot of arnachy by street vendors. You even find people selling shake shake beer and tu jilijili. This breeds all kinds of vice on the streets. The streets need to be cleaned up.
As at now the situation is pathetic. Vendors should be in their designated trading places. Period…!
The problem is that the majority of the people holding critical positions are not appointed on merit and skills sets they possess but political appeasement and expedience, the need for political mileage, nepotism, tribalism and all such adverse reasons.
How do you expect individuals devoid of expert knowledge to do the jobs correctly? Nowadays even the positions of PS ehich is supposed to be held by technocrats id given to cadres. The vuvuzela that blurts loudest and licks the boots to a super shine gets the job.
Atase