By Ian Gumisiriza Jeremiah
As the days race towards the deadline given to street vendors and hawkers by City authorities to cease from practicing their trade on city streets one can only imagine the pain, the anguish, the sense of hopelessness and betrayal these vendors are experiencing.
Over the last 3 months City authorities led by The Resident City Commissioner Mr. Hudu Hussein have been giving deadlines and extending the same to street vendors to vacate Kampala streets or face the wrath of the long arm of government. The argument given by the City administrators is that these vendors disorganise the city, destroy greenery and obstruct traffic among other society ills.
Mr. Hudu in justifying their planned course of action is quoted as saying;
“We have heard your insults and cries. As you see, those cities to which you compare Kampala do not have vending and hawking on streets because the governments there drove them off the streets. So the vendors and hawkers on streets should be aware of next year. Our streets and pavements are not for trading,”
I don’t know if Mr. Hudu and the officials at City Hall have made enough research on how those cities alluded to got rid of street vending and hawking. However, what I am vividly aware of is the dishonesty of City Hall officials in their recommendation that these vendors should find spaces in city markets such as Usafi and Wandageya and the approach of using the stick to chase vendors rather than the carrot to entice them to leave the street. KCCA has adverts running on different local FM stations arguing the vendors to go and find spaces in these markets and as a person informed about the situation in these markets and the processes pertaining to securing space there I can only mumble; What a waste of government resources!
Mr. Hudu and the officials at City Hall are aware of the status of tenancy in these markets because they are under their administration. In the case of Usafi Market since it was procured by government in 2015 most of the lock-ups and stalls were registered in the names of city councillors and other KCCA officials whose only economic interest in these facilities was to sublet them at exorbitant rates different from the official dues levied by KCCA which scared away most of the street vendors back to the streets.
In Wandegeya Market, since its completion in 2014, the situation has not been any different. Up to this day, you find individuals who own up to 10 facilities single-handedly most of which have been locked since this market was officially opened. The reader must keep in mind that street vendors are people who operate with very limited capital, as low as Shs50,000/=. If the “owner” of the stall or lock-up is charging, lets say, Shs100,000/= per month and requires payment of 3 months’ rent upfront, where do you expect this vendor to get Shs300,000/= from?
As for markets that were in individuals’ hands like Nakasero and Owino the situation is worse.
H.E The President having understood the plight of vendors in Kampala markets tried to rectify this anomaly in August 2020 when he directed that KCCA should take over administration of all markets in Kampala and suspended rent collection and other levies until further notice. For a whole 15 months KCCA has not helped the President to address the challenge of tenancy in these markets. Why isn’t Mr. Hudu being, the representative of the President in Kampala, not explaining this to the vendors to assuage their fears?
The answer lies, partly, in the mystery that surrounds application and allocation of spaces in these markets. The vendors’ leaders and KCCA officials in those markets have no mandate to allocate these spaces. The mandate is vested in the City Council led by The Lord Mayor, which sits and puts in place an Allocation Committee. I can state without fear of contradiction that the Management office at Wandageya Market is stuck with thousands of applications some of which must be from the street vendors and hawkers. Why are the officials at City Hall not addressing this red-tape and sensitizing the street vendors instead of threatening to stop them using force?
Woe to a city that cares for its beauty rather than the well-being of its dwellers. With the depraved indifference to human life that has been demonstrated by KCCA Enforcement Officers we all need to moan for the impending loss of lives and bloodshed that we are about to witness on Kampala streets. And you who have businesses in Kampala and the corporate class that is happy about the expulsion of these vendors you ought to understand that once these young energetic boys on the streets are deprived of their source of livelihood some of them will join gangs of phone snatchers, side-mirror harvesters and petty criminals that will terrorize your plush neighbourhoods.
My humble appeal to the officials at City Hall please re-allign your priorities and plan for the wellbeing of living things rather the non-living things such as pavements that seem to be your current area of focus.
The writer is a Socio-economic transformation activist and Chairman Museveni Supporters’ Association.