News / National
'City council issuing vending cards in a corrupt manner' - Ziso
23 Jul 2015 at 11:13hrs | Views
Zimbabwe Informal Sector's Organization expresses concern over the corrupt manner in which the city council is issuing vending cards.
The vending cards have mainly been issued to non-vendors who have strong links with council officials.This has resulted in real vendors who need the vending cards the most being deprived and displaced from their sites.
This might lead to the proliferation of new forms of space barons who will sublet vending sites to vendors at exorbitant costs.
Further ZISO is worried by the mandatory 1.25 a day payment to
council and government. For all intents and purposes this is a
presumptive tax that does not take into account what profit a vendor made and whether or not the vendor utilized the site or not on a stated day.
This is exploitative as vendors may not turn up or utilize the sites on certain days for various reasons.What is further worrying is that council resolved to attach properties of vendors who fail to pay the mandatory fee after a given period of time.
It is noteworthy that council is already using vendors details to trace them. There is therefore no guarantee that vendors details will not be used to intimidate and patronise them in the long run.
ZISO urges the city councilors to ensure that the process of registering and issuing cards to vendors is as transparent and open as possible and that people will not be turned into subjects of a patronage system in order to safeguard their vending cards.
There is need to reform the approach from a presumptive tax. In order to do this effectively vendors need to be given basic training on bookkeeping so that they are able to demonstrate what they sold, the profit or losses they would have made. This will go a long way in informing the taxation mechanism and protecting vendors against paying taxes for profits they did not accrue.
The vending cards have mainly been issued to non-vendors who have strong links with council officials.This has resulted in real vendors who need the vending cards the most being deprived and displaced from their sites.
This might lead to the proliferation of new forms of space barons who will sublet vending sites to vendors at exorbitant costs.
Further ZISO is worried by the mandatory 1.25 a day payment to
council and government. For all intents and purposes this is a
presumptive tax that does not take into account what profit a vendor made and whether or not the vendor utilized the site or not on a stated day.
It is noteworthy that council is already using vendors details to trace them. There is therefore no guarantee that vendors details will not be used to intimidate and patronise them in the long run.
ZISO urges the city councilors to ensure that the process of registering and issuing cards to vendors is as transparent and open as possible and that people will not be turned into subjects of a patronage system in order to safeguard their vending cards.
There is need to reform the approach from a presumptive tax. In order to do this effectively vendors need to be given basic training on bookkeeping so that they are able to demonstrate what they sold, the profit or losses they would have made. This will go a long way in informing the taxation mechanism and protecting vendors against paying taxes for profits they did not accrue.
Source - Ziso
