Kigali’s trade-off: The cost of
At first glimpse, Rwanda’s capital is a model African city: clean, organised, beautiful. But behind the gleaming facade, not all is well
Theodosie Uwamohoro was hawking bottles of juice and mineral water at the bus station the day she was killed. It was a Saturday — May 7 2016. When the other traders realised the security guards had entered the Nyabugogo bus park, they began stashing their goods. Some ran. Informal trading was illegal in Kigali. Those who got caught had their wares confiscated or found themselves behind bars.
Uwamohoro was caught.
The security guards seized her box, witnesses later told the court. She followed them, begging. One of them turned and hit her. She fell to the ground. Another kicked her. She stood up, and was hit again. She fell backward, slamming her head.
She didn’t get up again after that. In the days after Uwamohoro was killed, local politicians descended on Nyabugogo, asking the hawkers what they could do to help to get them off the street.
In October, the city launched 12 formal markets with enough space to host some 8 000 traders, rent-free for the first year.
The next January, the city said both sellers and buyers would be fined and arrested if caught.
By August 2017, the city’s new mayor, Pascal Nyamulinda, brought in the police to stamp out the problem of hawking once and for all.
“There are laws,” he said, “and they must be respected.”
‘I will choose discipline’
In a side room on the ground floor of the city hall is a mock-up of Kigali as envisioned by a Singaporean planning firm. There’s a banking district, malls and an Olympic stadium.
“Does this mean Rwanda hopes to host the Olympics one day?” I asked.
“Of course,” said the city planner guiding me around.
Upstairs, Nyamulinda had a Rwandan flag fastened to his suit lapel.
“You know, all cities have the same problem,” he was saying. “People think that in Kigali they will find jobs. So they come.”
Since the end of the genocide, the city land has expanded six times over. Informal settlements are spreading. There are no informal settlements in the mock-up downstairs.
“So they come,” the mayor continued. “But when they come they find sometimes they don’t have jobs and then they find themselves trading on the street. It causes security problems. Hygiene problems. We want a city that is safe and clean and green.”
In the dedicated markets built after Uwamohoro’s death, thousands of stalls were still standing empty as traders continued to play catch with the cops every evening, selling food and clothes from backpacks in the dark.
“I don’t know why some prefer to stay in the street. For some reason …” said Nyamulinda. “We’ve seen that for most of the people it is something suspicious — to steal from cars, for example, you know?”
He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened a message — his morning report of arrests the day before. There was a line for the number of thieves arrested and a line for the number of informal traders arrested, and a line for the number of prostitutes arrested, and a line for drug users, and one for wanderers, and one for street children.
“I have been in many, many capital cities, many times,” said Nyamulinda. “If you have to choose between a mess and discipline, I will choose discipline.”
‘Kigali is for rich people’
The first time Michel* (19) was arrested for street trading, he spent three weeks in Gikondo Transit Centre in Kigali. Human Rights Watch described it as an “informal detention centre” where “undesirables” were held “without charge and with no regard for due process”. Local daily newspaper The New Times likened it to a boarding school: “The compound bustles with activity as new members are screened while others play different games punctuated with laughter …”
“First, they give you a sheet of paper with your name and when you were arrested,” said Michel. “Inside there are others — other prisoners — and when they see you, they are happy to beat you. So they beat you. Then you have to shave your head. And you stay there. The police decide how long.”
Michel said the detainees were advised to give up hawking — to instead trade legally, in the markets. But six months and two more arrests later, he was standing in a quiet side street late at night with a box of peanuts under his arm. He had bought them at the market in Nyabugogo, near where Uwamohoro died, and trawled the streets of Kigali selling them at a marked-up price.
If he sold every packet, he could earn close to $7, he said, but even on a good day, he pulled in less than $2.
Costs were kept down by splitting rent with two other hawkers and keeping his meals down to one a day. It’s what he could do with a fourthgrade education.
“You know, I’m not fighting the laws,” he said. “It’s a good law. I don’t have a problem with laws. I only have a problem with figuring out how to survive … I don’t have a degree. My one degree is to sell things on the street.”
Michel shifted his weight, looked over his shoulder, listened.
“Kigali is not for me. Kigali is for rich people,” he said. “Maybe next year I’ll get some money and try to go back to the countryside and try to keep animals. I’m tired of this town.”
‘Hawking kills business’
“Let me tell you, there are actually very few countries in Africa with a social welfare support system like the one we have,” said city spokesperson Bruno Rangira. “There are a lot of opportunities, be it in the city, be it in the countryside.”
Street vending was an easy option for youths but not one the city wanted to encourage.
“We have funding opportunities if people have small- and mediumscale business initiatives. We mobilise the youth to take hold of these opportunities … we are giving them an alternative to operate, so I don’t agree that stopping them from street vending pushes them into even more