Maravi

Michael and street vending

Michael and street vending
By The Post
Sun 22 Apr. 2012, 13:30 CAT

STREET vending is increasingly becoming a big nuisance in Lusaka. Things have clearly gotten out of hand. The situation is even becoming dangerous for the street vendors themselves who have to share space on the streets of the city of Lusaka with motorists. Without much thinking, without serious analysis of the situation, some people are blaming this veritable chaos on Michael Sata who had stopped the Ministry of Local Government from clearing vendors off the streets. But truthfully, is it Michael who has created street vendors?

Is it Michael who is responsible for the lack of formal jobs that has driven our people to street vending for them to simply belong to the living? It is true street vending is a nuisance, it is inconveniencing many people in so many ways.

But for those poor people, in the present circumstances, street vending is their only way to survive. We can't talk to them about the inconveniences of street vending if we are not offering them an alternative way to survive. And we don't think that in his heart of hearts Michael likes to see his people humiliated, dehumanised by living, surviving on the street.

It is something that must actually be agonising him. Michael must be losing a lot of sleep over this issue. By defending the rights of these people to earn a living on the streets, if that's all they can do for now, Michael did not in any way suggest that they should be on the street forever and in this form.

Michael is simply a responsible politician who did not want to push people to nowhere. Michael is an experienced politician. He was local government minister in the early 1990s and had to deal with this problem of street vending.

Michael implemented a government policy to get rid of vendors from the streets of our towns. It failed. The police were set on their own brothers and sisters who had to earn a living. And some of the street vendors came from police camps, were dependants of relatives of police officers.

A policy of setting one humble section of the population against another failed to deliver the desired results. How can one set a poor policeman on another poor person whose only crime is to vend on the street and expect a positive result?

Michael is looking for a just, fair and humane solution to this problem. And he said he was open to co-operate with anyone who could create meaningful jobs for these poor people so that they can leave the street. And most people are not on the street because they want to be there.

They are on the street because they have to be on the street to survive. No one has come up with any meaningful solution to this problem. Banning street vending is the easiest thing a government can do. But here the problem is not that of stopping street vending. It is about the lives of people. It is about ensuring that they have a source of livelihood.

We do appreciate the distressing challenges this whole issue poses to any serious politician in government. We also share the bitter feeling of impotence those in government, people like Michael, have in the face of such problems and their concern for the political and social instability which this problem gives rise to.

So gloomy are the realities and prospects that they could generate pessimism and discouragement if we were not sure of our aims. They are inevitably a bitter pill to swallow, but if we are to face up to the realities, we have first to become aware of them.

We do not have, nor do we think anyone has, magic or instant remedies for such difficult, complex and apparently insoluble problems. However, history shows that no problem has ever been solved until it has become a tangible reality of which everyone is aware.

Today we are faced with the most serious and anguishing problem of poverty and unemployment ever known to our people. But no matter how enormous the difficulties, no matter how complex the task, there can be no room for pessimism.

This would be to renounce all hope and resign ourselves to the final defeat. We have no alternative to struggle, trusting in the great moral and intellectual capacity of our people and in their instinct for self-preservation, if we wish to harbour any hope of a reversal of fortunes.

Only with a tremendous effort and the moral and intellectual support of all can we face a future that objectively appears desperate and sombre, especially for the poorest of our people.

Today's politics is about the welfare of the people, is about putting the lives of our people first. We must built the strong and active society and the leadership that can provide it. We must do it together.

We must work for it together. We must plan for it together. We cannot protect the ordinary by chasing them from the means of their livelihoods; we must protect each other because this can only be done together. Street vending is truly a nuisance.

But it is also a necessary source of income for an increasing number of our people. Let's work to get them out of this humiliation. They are on the street not because they want to be on the street. They need help to get out of the street.

But they must move from the street to somewhere where they can earn the same or even a better income. They don't want to be on the street forever. And we don't want them to be on the street even for a second if we can help it. But we can't move them from the street to nowhere. They have to go somewhere. And they are waiting to be taken somewhere.

Let's advocate for measures that are just, fair and humane. Justice without compassion is not justice at all. Michael doesn't want these people on the streets. But what options does he have for now? And we underline for now. The street is not a permanent solution.

It is actually a desperate one. But this is all our people have offered themselves. And probably this is all their country can offer them for now. We urge our politicians in government to meditate deeply over this issue and find a solution to street vending.

We also urge all Zambians of goodwill to join hands with our political leadership in government and help to find more humane solutions to this problem. Chasing street vendors with policemen won't do. And it didn't do in the past. Michael and others tried it and it failed.

This is probably why Michael is today reluctant to set policemen and other law enforcement officers on these poor street vendors.

Labels: GERRY CHANDA, LCC, MARKETEERS, MICHAEL SATA

posted by MrK @ 6:33 PM