TENDAI BHEBE IN BULAWAYO
Informal traders in Beitbridge have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Beitbridge Town Council as part of efforts to create good working relations between the vendors and the municipality.
A representative of the vendors in Beitbridge, Buso Khuphe said the MoU helps to combine “our efforts so that when we have grievances we come as one with one voice”. The grievances are now likely to be taken seriously by our local municipality, he said.
“It also helps us to become aware of our rights as vendors and rights of other stakeholders that are within our scope of operation and it helps to understand our responsibilities to our general environment and towards our customers,” Khuphe said.
He said informal traders have been engaging with other stakeholders on the privileges they can get since the borders are about to open.
“It also saves us from any future engagements or decisions we are bound to make towards a better foreseeable future between a trader and local municipalities engagements. Just on Thursday (September 16, 2021) we had two engagements that we had with the local municipality.
“There’s one by which we were talking about the MOU, as well as the constitution pertaining to our informal sector and the other one was with another local informal traders association by the name Beitbridge Cross Border Association. They were trying to look for informal traders’ exemptions and privileges as the borders are about to open,” Khuphe said.
Another vendor in Beitbridge, Portia Sithole said vendors were looking forward to communicating effectively with the town council.
“I believe this MoU will bring change to us as vendors. It will help us know more about the informal trading sector. We don’t know some of our rights. I am sure that we will be able to grow our businesses through this,” Sithole said.
“And again the agreement will make us as vendors have one voice and unite as associations so that when we are submitting our grievances to the town council it will be the same thing.”
All efforts to get an official comment from the Beitbridge Town Council were futile.
Meanwhile, the Bulawayo City Council is also planning to sign MoUs with informal traders associations to harness their contribution.
According to official data obtained from the Bulawayo City Council, the informal sector has contributed more than ZWL$13m to council coffers through licence fees and rentals during the first six months of this year.
The August, Bulawayo City Council minutes state that the figure is likely to increase to over ZWL$100m if revenue collection is intensified.
