MALAWI: Embattled street vendors get a reprieve

LILONGWE, 15 Feb 2006 (IRIN) - Malawi's embattled informal traders have been given until 15 April to vacate the streets or face forced eviction.

President Bingu wa Mutharika gave the vendors a reprieve after street battles last week with the police, in which a vendor was shot at and 40 of them arrested. The government wants the traders to move to permanent flea markets in the capital Lilongwe, the commercial hub Blantyre and the northern town of Mzuzu.

The president has intervened because the issue is a "social and economic one and as such should not be viewed as a weakness [on the part of the president]," said a statement from Mutharika's office.

Official sources said the humanitarian situation in the drought-affected country had forced the administration to give the several thousand vendors time to move. More than 5 million people are in need of food aid in Malawi, which faced its worst drought in a decade last year.

Some of the traders in Lilongwe told IRIN that they were willing to move to the flea market, but were concerned with overcrowding.

"It is wrong for government to say we do not want to go to the flea market. Some of us are ready but the problem is that not all of us can fit in the new market. We need government to construct a big market and we will move in," said James Yusufu, a second-hand clothes dealer.

Over the past three years, in an attempt to tackle hygiene issues and petty crime on city streets, the government constructed flea markets in Blantyre and Lilongwe and encouraged the traders to move.

However, Vendors Association chair Grant Phiri, who was arrested last week in the clashes with the police, said they had not been consulted and accused the authorities of failing to listen to their grievances.

Most vendors complain that the flea markets are located at a distance from the city centres where their customers are based. "[The customers] cannot travel to the flea markets especially after knocking off from their work. They are very much in a hurry to go home and they easily get what they want from the streets," said Yusufu.

However, many residents in the three urban centres have welcomed the government decision to have the vendors removed from the streets. During former president Bakili Muluzi's tenure, street vendors were seen as a popular vote bank and were encouraged. The flag of the then ruling United Democratic Front was a common sight on street corners.

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