… sometimes, a trip into town is enough to change your mind

Cresencia Marjorie Chiremba

BY Monday evening, I had changed my mind about something I had long felt strongly about.

I went into town after hours and passed behind Construction House, along Park Street.

I was not prepared for what I found. The scene was so frustrating that I left the central business district looking at the ongoing fight against street vending from a completely different angle.

For a long time, I had thought that removing vendors from pavements was inhuman. Many depend on selling goods to feed their families, pay rent and keep children in school. I still understand that reality. But on Monday, I found myself playing the devil’s advocate.

The pavements were crowded with vendors, their goods spreading into the very space meant for people to walk.

Getting through meant squeezing between merchandise, people and whatever little gap remained.
What annoyed me even more was the state of the parking bays.

Some were occupied by vendors and people selling second-hand clothes, leaving motorists struggling to find somewhere to park.

When you ask someone to move their wares because you want to use a parking bay, the response can be, “Ndachengetera mumwe munhu parking” — I am keeping this space for someone else.

Really? Since when did a public parking bay become a personal reservation? Parking should operate on a first-come, first-served basis, not on the strength of who has claimed a patch of road or whose customer might arrive later.

You cannot hold a public space for an unseen person while everyone else circles the block.

These little disputes point to a bigger problem: the growing belief that public space belongs to whoever occupies it first and refuses to give it up.

The pavement belongs to pedestrians. A designated parking bay is for parking. The road is for traffic. When every person decides to use public space according to their own rules, the whole city pays the price.

I know what some readers will say. People are trying to survive. Formal jobs are hard to come by, and vending is how many families earn a living.

It is easy to demand that vendors leave the streets when you are not the one wondering how to put food on the table at the end of the day.
That argument deserves to be taken seriously.

But so does the right of everyone else to use the city. A pedestrian should not have to walk in the road because the pavement has become a market.

A driver should not have to argue for access to a marked parking bay. Shop owners, people with disabilities, elderly residents and parents walking with children also need space to move around safely.

This is why the debate cannot be reduced to one side being heartless and the other being helpless. Vendors need somewhere viable to trade, but public spaces cannot be occupied without limits.

The answer is not to humiliate people or treat every informal trader like a criminal. Nor is it to turn a blind eye until the CBD becomes impossible to navigate.

Authorities need to provide and manage suitable trading areas, communicate the rules clearly and apply them fairly. If enforcement is only occasional, selective or followed by vendors returning to the same spots, nothing really changes.

There also needs to be a clear distinction between earning a living and claiming territory. Selling goods does not give anyone the right to reserve public parking for a customer who has not arrived.

Being economically vulnerable should call for practical solutions and dignity, not a free pass to disregard everyone else. The same rules should apply consistently, without favouritism or unnecessary brutality.

My experience on Monday did not make me forget the hardships that drive people into street vending. It did, however, make me question whether compassion has sometimes been mistaken for allowing anything to happen.

We can care about people’s livelihoods and still insist on order. Those positions are not enemies.

Harare’s CBD belongs to all of us: the vendor trying to make a sale, the pedestrian walking home, the motorist searching for a parking bay, the commuter trying to reach a bus and the shopkeeper trying to run a business.

No single group should have to surrender its basic rights so another can operate without restriction.

I went into town thinking the crackdown on pavement vending was too harsh. I came out thinking that the conversation needs to be more honest.

Yes, protect livelihoods. Yes, treat vendors humanely. But also keep pavements open, parking bays accessible and public space public.

A city cannot function when everyone makes their own rules — and compassion should never mean pretending that chaos is acceptable.

***Cresencia Marjorie Chiremba is a Marketing, Sales & Customer Service Consultant. For suggestions and training, contact her at [email protected] or +263 712 979 461 / 0719 978 335 / 0772 978 335