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LIFELINE for struggling vendors as BCC allocates 700 vending bays

by Staff Reporter
04 Jan 2015 at 23:58hrs | Views

BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) last year allocated more than 700 vending bays to the informal sector in a bid to reduce and ease unemployment as companies continued to close down.

Due to operational constraints facing businesses countrywide, Bulawayo has been hit by massive de-industrialization in the past few years.

Presenting the 2015 national budget in November last year, Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa announced that at least 55,000 workers lost their jobs countrywide between 2011 and last year as firms continued to close down.

In his New Year message, the Mayor, Councillor Martin Moyo, said as part of their efforts to reduce and ease unemployment, the local authority last year apportioned 787 vending bays.

He said plans to provide proper vending marts or shelter to informal traders during the period under review were, however, hampered by a critical shortage of capital.

He urged residents to gear up for development in 2015 on the back of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-economic Transformation (Zim-Asset).

Zim-Asset is an economic blueprint to anchor the country's economy up to 2018 and it seeks to foster economic growth and development.

Last week, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Corporative Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni directed informal sector associations in the city to start registering their members as the government embarks on formalisation of SMEs' operations in the country.

SMEs operations are being formalised to enhance their contribution to the fiscus considering that they are the engine of the country's economy.

Of late, it has been noted that Zimbabwe's SMEs sector is vibrant but most of its operations are not formalised.

According to Minister Nyoni, the informal sector contributes 67 percent of Bulawayo's revenue.

Following the rapid growth and development of informal activities in the country, players in the sector are experiencing working space shortages.

Source - Chronicle
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