Rich

Opinionated Citizen of the World.
Loves Zimbabwe | Loves Africa. | Civils And Structural Engineer

[Rich @richmacklin]

@tino_bonde_05 Ichapera pachachinja president

[Rich @richmacklin]

@ZvikoNN You don't clean money by loosing it or giving it away.

[Rich @richmacklin]

@SANDEJAQ @nickmangwana That's a different question. If they accepted the job at that pay they must be held to proper standards. You can't steal and disrespect people in the name of poor salary.

[Rich @richmacklin]

@LuckieTaflo Media gets in for free guys

[Rich @richmacklin]

@baba_nyenyedzi I only hope someone who can make a decision in the treasury watches your podcast

[Edmund Kudzayi @EdmundKudzayi]

Which Crocodile Is Doing This One? The Vendors Want to Know

The Crocodile has lately enjoyed something of a winning streak. Citigroup suggests Zimbabwe may be turning a corner faster than outsiders realise; the IMF recorded growth of 8.3% last year and projects roughly 5% this year, citing low inflation and a relatively stable exchange rate. These institutions are hardly friends of Zanu-PF; and whatever one's view of Amendment No. 3, that too is now law.

Even grudging observers are compelled to concede that the reptilian operator has accumulated the sort of favourable run that sensible governments endeavour not to interrupt.

Quite why Daniel Garwe has chosen this precise moment to manufacture a confrontation with some of Zimbabwe's poorest citizens is, therefore, difficult to fathom. The Local Government Minister has given vendors operating from 'undesignated spaces' until 9 September to vacate, after which the Government promises a 'comprehensive, zero-tolerance' clean-up operation.

No sensible person disputes that Harare requires order. Pavements must remain passable, food must be sold hygienically, and formal businesses cannot reasonably have their entrances barricaded. But why are the vendors there? Are these enemies of the state who warrant such unforgiving force, or are they simply congregating where customers actually walk?

A woman selling tomatoes on Julius Nyerere Way is not staging an insurrection against municipal by-laws; she is standing where tomatoes sell. Banish her to a place where nobody buys them, and what exactly has been solved—beyond rendering her poverty less visible?

The Government itself appears to know the answer. NDS2—the Government's own National Development Strategy—states that access to trading spaces must be prioritised ahead of relocation from undesignated areas and explicitly calls for dialogue between informal traders and regulators.

Does the left hand know what the right is doing?

Indeed, mere days before Garwe's ultimatum, SME Minister Monica Mutsvangwa declared that formalisation would be gradual, not a 'big-bang' affair, precisely because traders require safe, affordable and adequate workspaces. How does a gradual transition—one dependent upon infrastructure that must first exist—collapse into a seven-day, zero-tolerance edict? The sequence is surely obvious: build the infrastructure, then relocate the people.

This contradiction would be merely an administrative farce were the consequences not so acutely human. A society's true condition is measured by the circumstances of its most vulnerable, not by the gleam of its tallest buildings nor the manicured beauty of its upmarket suburbs.

Zimbabwe provides no social safety net capable of replacing even a fraction of the meagre daily earnings of those the Government sweeps from the pavement. Rent does not vanish on 9 September. Nor do school fees. Nor does hunger. What, then, does the Government imagine happens on 10 September?

If it has no answer, the directive communicates something altogether uglier: vanozvionera ikoko; hatinei nazvo. Go and suffer somewhere we cannot see you.

Which brings us to 'zero tolerance'. Given the sheer venom of the tone, one can almost imagine the responsible official—unless Garwe types these outrageous threats himself—frothing at the mouth in sadistic anticipation of the suffering about to be inflicted.

The public might rejoice at such zeal were it directed at the many inanimate crises defeating his ministry: zero tolerance for raw sewage; zero tolerance for dry taps; zero tolerance for uncollected refuse; zero tolerance for ruined roads. These things have no children to feed and no rent to pay.

Garwe himself recently complained that councils were squandering funds on workshops and foreign travel while basic services languished. Why are the things that genuinely deserve zero tolerance endured for years, while the State discovers its absolutism only when the victim is human?

The alternative is not simply chaos. Why not pedestrianise selected CBD streets and regulate vending by zone and hour? Why not provide water, toilets and refuse collection, prescribe stall sizes and hygiene standards, and transform particular thoroughfares into organised markets and food precincts?

Singapore spent years resettling street hawkers into properly serviced centres; today, those centres are revered community institutions. Harare is Harare; Singapore is Singapore. Fine. But the underlying lesson remains universal: Government must first create the conditions under which compliance is actually possible.

One wishes we still adhered to the old legislative discipline of green papers before white papers: publish the problem, invite argument, test the assumptions, and only then govern. Had that protocol been observed, somebody might have asked a fundamental question before reaching for the bludgeon of zero tolerance: precisely how many traders are to be removed, and how many viable, lawful spaces currently exist to receive them?

And on what empirical basis has this operation been designed? Where is the accounting of vendor numbers, foot traffic in designated spaces, current earnings levels, the likely impact of relocation and the interventions available to cushion that blow?

One cannot claim to be conducting a serious exercise in governance without even the pretence of answering such elementary questions. To proceed regardless is reckless, callous and grossly irresponsible.

If this directive originates from the elder Crocodile, one can only plead that he reconsider it. If, however, it is merely the lesser crocodile's inspiration, perhaps the elder might demand that the hatchling produce the arithmetic before 9 September. If the Minister cannot demonstrate where these vendors will go and how they will survive once they get there, what exactly is being cleaned up?

Clean Harare, certainly. Regulate it, make it orderly, sanitary and beautiful. But the poor are not litter.

Kukurigo Editorials ©

[Rich @richmacklin]

@matigary Those people don't enjoy being vendors. It's either that or starvation. We have to get rid of vendors, but not by a decree. Build industries up, anyone will choose a decent predictable salary over the indecency you are subjected to through vending

[Rich @richmacklin]

@CrimeWatchZW Good chance he is being scapegoated. Happens a lot in the financial services sector

[member of Hamas🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦 @kwets11]

But as soon as this man, gets a little pussy on the side for himself as a reward for taking care of everybody, all hell breaks loose.✋🏾😭

[Rich @richmacklin]

@mak_aura Who would fund these ideas without shareholders money lol

[Rich @richmacklin]

@peacememso How do they get there, AI

[Rich @richmacklin]

@GonaEtwell @CrimeWatchZW That's just assault,no record just $30 fine or so

[Rich @richmacklin]

@bxllyville Too late, votes no longer matter

[Rich @richmacklin]

@nonduduzo_ncube It's lack of financial literacy. People are afraid or don't know how to invest and properly grow their wealth so they just accumulate houses which they won't even maintain properly. And cars which also drain them financially.

[Rich @richmacklin]

@freemanchari I mean that still leaves like what ,17M people?? Right?

[Rich @richmacklin]

@CrimeWatchZW 10 years ago??. Please we are all prophets then. Any random thing could happen if we give it enough time come on

[Rich @richmacklin]

@Motiont43s In unrelated news, the average IQ of a community matters significantly more to that communities' well being, standard of life and economic development. Low IQ societies tend to praise and advocate for things that are detrimental to their general well being

[Rich @richmacklin]

@MacBelts Nothing to see here. In public places always sanitise your hands. Worse there is a terrible flue strain going on , sanitize

[Rich @richmacklin]

@hisfaveemuse You guys want her to be dramatic and give you free entertainment and loose her millionaire lifestyle