HH IS WRONG, GARY IS RIGHT- MILES SAMPA
STREET VENDORS IN LUSAKA
By Miles B. Sampa, MP (15.01.2023)
All Lusaka district MPs were yesterday invited for a meeting at Statehouse.
Hon Garry Nkombo and the Secretary to Cabinet Mr Patrick Kangwa made separate direct calls to all of us MPs in the City to attend but unfortunately I could not due to circumstances beyond my control.
President HH addressed them including the City Mayor essentially reversing the Local Government Minister decree that Street vendors vacate CBD by tomorrow to avert risks of Cholera outbreak.
I have seen this script before and was one of the actors as Mayor of the City. Good intentions for the City and it’s people but reversed on orders from up above.
The Minister Nkombo and the President are both right and wrong.
The Minister wants a clean city for health reasons because the effects of a Chorela outbreak are life threatening. Wrong in that people trading on the streets depend on that revenue to feed and take their children to school.
The President is right in that he has opted to priotise the micro economic side of the street vendors pockets for their survival given the harsh economic challenges. He is however wrong in that if Chorela breaks out, some lives may be lost and as it were the blame will be on his desk.
As I have stated before, the topics of town street vendors, clean streets and Chorela risks hardly have a winner. To fix one side, another has to suffer. It needs a government is shrewd. At one point the then President ECL got the soldiers and ZNS to move into town to clean up.
The issue of street vendors is a hot potato as it’s one of the main income sources for party cadres. Be Chester not that the practice is no more. Same as at market and bus stations, they collect daily levies on behalf of ‘the council and party’ in theory but in reality it’s on behalf of their pockets. ‘We put you in power’ entitlement.
Chorela is a real threat to lives and as it turns out in my 3 years as Mayor of the greater city of Lusaka, I recorded zero Chorela outbreak. It was all due to our constant and constant reminder for residents to wash hands regularly, only drink boiled water and avoid shallow wells water especially in Kanyama area.
I can only wish Minister Nkombo and the President best of luck in dealing with the Lusaka street vendors conondrum. In doing so I also wish to remind both on what their promises were on vendors before last general elections. They said they would have zero tolerance for them. I guess now they have done a 360 degrees U-turn. Street vendors are here to stay with all the health risks involved but as always, political expediency seems to always prevail in our Zambian and Africa politics.
MBS15.01.2023