Harare Vendors Stock Foodstuffs In Public Toilets
Some vendors operating in Harare’s central business district (CBD) have reportedly been storing their products, which include perishable items like vegetables, bottled water, and soft drinks, inside public toilet facilities overnight. They then proceed to sell these same products to unsuspecting consumers the following day.
According to a recent report by NewsDay, the vendors allegedly pay fees of up to US$5 to Harare City Council caretakers, who in turn permit them to keep these foodstuffs stored in the toilet facilities overnight, ostensibly for safekeeping.
A council caretaker who spoke to NewsDay on condition of anonymity said their arrangement with vendors is a win-win one. Said the caretaker:
We usually collect up to US$5 per night depending on the stock and sometimes they give us tomatoes or vegetables equivalent to US$2.
We use that money for transport to and from work because our salary is too little to take us for a month. Besides transport, we can also buy bread going home.
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Usually, we put their stuff inside empty boxes but it’s not every day.
It’s not easy to work as a caretaker at the council toilets. One has to be clever to the extent of making their own receipt books and collecting those few cents to take home.
However, now that there are mobile toilets situated near council toilets, it’s difficult to make money because people prefer those mobile toilets.
City of Harare’s director of health services, Prosper Chonzi, said:
It’s totally unacceptable, and unhealthy and this should be stopped. Those people who are conniving with the vendors should really be brought to book and brought to account because they are a danger to the health of the public at large.
In Zimbabwe, the informal sector, including street vendors, makes up a significant portion of economic activity in urban areas like Harare.
Estimates suggest hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Zimbabweans, are employed in the informal sector across the country in both urban and rural areas.
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