Hawkers not responsible for garbage – Kamba

THE Lusaka City Council (LCC) should stop harassing hawkers and instead consider giving them licences because they were not responsible for accumulation of garbage in the city says former Lusaka Province PF Youth Chairman Kennedy Kamba has said.

Mr Kamba said it was unlikely that hawkers could make the city dirty because of the nature of merchandise they traded in such as windscreen wipers, clothes, footballs, among others.

He said he did not support street vending but that the council was aware of who was contributing to garbage accumulation in the city and that those at the ones the council should deal with but in a humane manner though.

Mr. Kamba told the Daily Nation yesterday that the council should instead demolish illegal trading stands erected around the Central Business District (CBD) and restrict street vendors dealing in ready-eat foods.

“How can the council start beating up hawkers who are selling merchandise along the roads and flyover bridges in the name of stopping street vending and keeping the town city clean? How can you arrest people whose total capital is less than the K500 penalty fee which they slap on these who are arrested for them to be released?

“This is ridiculous and must not be condoned. Instead of arresting hawkers, the council must start using hawkers’ licences if their concern is revenue collection and also remove those who are setting up illegal stands around town because they are the ones who are making the city dirty. Hawkers don’t throw garbage. “The next thing we will hear is that the council has started beating up those who sell newspapers on the streets in the name of keeping the city clean because they are the same people. I started as a hawker. I earned my living from the streets and what LCC is doing is creating dissent and animosity against government by our people,” Mr Kamba said.

“Those same people they are today treating like criminals are the people who ushered the PF into power because they wanted sanity in the way they conducted their businesses unlike the past regimes which were victimising them. I am appealing to the mayor and his team to reconsider their actions,” he said.