Chipata council police fail to contain vendors

CHIPATA City Council (CCC) has attributed its failure to curtail wide-spreading illegal street vending resurfacing in the growing city to lack of a well-trained council police to handle the aggressive vendors.

Speaking during a recent provincial epidemics preparedness prevention, control and management meeting, CCC district planning officer, Edward Zulu said council police officers were working in fear of being beaten by aggressive mobs of illegal street traders due to lack of training to handle such aggression while on duty.

“As a council we really want to carry out these duties assigned to us. Unfortunately we are having a team of undertrained council police offers. They cannot handle the fight put up by vendors,” said Mr. Zulu.

The council submitted a request to the permanent secretary, Chanda Kasolo to consider hav- ing the council officers trained by the local State Police.

He said, “We are appealing to our city father that he could have our personnel trained by the local police officers to match the demands as an alternative solution to our emergency needs.”

Meanwhile, one council police officer is nursing serious wounds after he was severely beating by a vendor during an operation to drive vendors from the streets.

Meanwhile, due to intense poverty in Chipata most people are struggling to secure meaningful employment forcing women and young people to resort to vending to generate income.