'This is Bulawayo not Harare where Grace Mugabe stays,' vendors told

Vendors in Bulawayo have urged the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to immediately set laws that allow them to establish temporary vending bays so that they are not harassed by police.

Speaking to Bulawayo24 Community Voices spoke, the informal traders shockingly revealed that they were treated like criminals by municipal police who brutally arrest them and confiscate their goods.

Patricia Sibanda, 33 a mother of four school going kids bemoaned the harassment by police and urged authorities to immediately address their plight.

She said she is forced to pay a bribe of $3-$5 everyday to evade police harassment and that makes saving difficult for her as she only gets a profit of $3-$6 a day.

Another 65 year old woman who only identified herself as MaMoyo said she has been in the vending business for more than two decades and although she has managed to acquire a vending stand for herself she was forced to sell her wares outside the stand to attract customers.

"I have been in this business for 28 years but I am forced to play cat and mouse with cops because I sell some of my wares outside to attract customers," she said.

She said she pays a monthly fee of $14 for the stand but she does not use it because customers preferred buying wares outside the stands.

Another vendor who chose not to be named for fear of being targeted by rogue municipal police showed Bulawayo24 some scars which she said she sustained from hand cuffs during a police raid.

"But I am not a criminal, neither did I resist arrest," the mother of two said.

Recently the First Lady Grace Mugabe ordered police to stop harassing vendors but they said nothing has changed.

"They told us to go and report to Amai (Grace)," one vendor said, adding: "They said this is Bulawayo not Harare where Grace stays."


Municipal police as well as members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, have been playing a 'cat and mouse' game with vendors in the city, with allegations of corruption against the law-enforcement.

Senior minister of State in the President's Office, Simon Khaya Moyo, on Friday ordered the MDC-T-controlled city council to stop municipal police from treating vendors and informal traders in a "barbaric" manner amid reports the local authority is still using oppressive by-laws crafted during the colonial era but the