The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Hwange Local Board (HLB) is working on creating a conducive operating environment for both formal and informal business players that speaks to the new normal characterised by Covid-19 containment measures.
HLB town secretary Mr Ndumiso Mdlalose said the Covid-19-induced national lockdowns led to the sprouting of numerous informal traders in all suburbs within the local authority’s area of jurisdiction as well as the country as a whole.
“If you look at the entire country, the outbreak of Covid-19 and subsequently imposition of lockdowns saw shopping areas being seriously limited and shops opening for a very short period, thus most people started selling goods from all corners,” he said in the local board’s newsletter.
The business community has since the beginning of the year raised concerns of unfair competition from informal traders accusing them of denting their profitability. Since the advent of Covid-19 there has been a tremendous surge of unregistered shops as well as individuals selling goods from their backyards. The outcry from the business community prompted HLB to raid vendors that were selling their wares by the roadsides and at homes without licences.
“As a planning authority we must always respond to what we see as an impediment to development and service provision. We have already moved in to stall certain types of informal trading through our security details. However, what’s important is that, when council police are moving to enforce the law, they should be protected by the Zimbabwe Republic Police,” said Mr Mdlalose.
He added that council was in the process of introducing a raft of measures and by-laws aimed at creating an enabling environment for businesses to operate.
“There must be by-laws relevant to that (informal trading) situation and to deal with that particular situation, so that we are not found wanting in terms of the laws of the land. Right now, we are working on a number of by-laws including policies to that effect. This is coming at an opportune time for us to respond properly with the right instruments or policies to deal with the anomaly,” said Mr Mdlalose.
He, however, said the local authority was not out to eradicate informal sector activities but to formalise their activities.
“The high presence of informal traders shows that there’s a huge market, so what we need to do is not to kill the informal sector activities but plan for them.”
Mr Mdlalose noted that the local authority was working on coming up with decent working spaces for informal business operators as they encouraged the development of trading space or places such as incubators.
He said that as they remove people from undesignated areas, they take them elsewhere guided by the effective demand for those facilities as recorded at Council offices. Mr Mdlalose further encouraged individuals intending to trade to approach council so as to enable it to come up with a comprehensive database of people seeking trading spaces.
A shop owner at Empumalanga suburb, Mrs Tariro Mukomana of Mukomana Trading said the existence and proliferation of backyard shops was seriously affecting the viability of her business concern.
“We pay rates and license fees to the local authority including various other statutory instruments to enable us to operate legally yet we are made to compete with people that are operating backyard shops who have the audacity to lower prices because they are not subjected to payment of taxes and licences,” she said.
