Blantyre City Council Mayor Isaac Jomo Osman yesterday led a team from the council on a mission to remove vendors from undesignated spaces and ensure general hygiene in business centres. The team visited Limbe Market and inspected commercial buildings to assess standards. During the tour, Osman and the team engaged vendors who in turn expressed their commitment to stop operating their businesses from Limbe central business district (CBD).
“This is what we need and this is what we are going to do. We know a lot of people had doubts, but we are doing it in a manner that no one expected that we were going to do it. I always say that you send a thief to catch a thief,” said the mayor, himself a former street urchin.
Osman said Blantyre City was using dialogue and not force to move the vendors. He said the council will conduct a similar exercise in Blantyre CBD. Limbe Market chairperson Gregory Chingulu said it was not easy for them to start the relocation exercise, but said they were approached by the mayor who later hosted the vendors’ representatives at his office.
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“All vendors that were told to stop operating from Pa Bank, Majekete and Kapenga are no longer operating their businesses there. We know there is a serious issue of umbrellas in front of main shops, but we are still in talks, and we hope soon this will be sorted as well,” he said. Estelle Nasiyaya, one of the vendors operating at Kapenga, commended the use of dialogue to move them instead of force when police previously fired tear gas. The Local Government Act states that a person shall not establish a private market or engage in street vending within cities unless they have obtained prior written permission.
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