By: Kandjengo kaMwaanyoka
In one of the most puzzling moves, the City of Windhoek released a statement increasing various municipality tariffs and charges; while people are calculating how they will afford the new fees, the City Police is chasing open-space traders and vendors around the city.
It is like a movie plot: the leadership decided to make the cost of living in Windhoek more expensive, and at the same time, chase away those who are trading at various strategic open spaces.
How ironic and insensitive of the City Mother. The city has around half a million people, with the highest unemployment level, and expanding ghetto settlements, yet the same city is against people earning and creating their own opportunities.
Our leaders are struggling to understand the equation of open space trading or informality, or perhaps they are ignorant.
Nobody dreams of going to sell clothes in the open at the Chinatown four way. No boy child wants to be at the robots selling energy drinks; no woman wants to go to sell at the overcrowded Stop & Shop.
Those are all consequences of our economic model, the policies we have in place, and the depth of our entrepreneurial support.
The city’s management needs to understand that the ballooning of informality is largely their fault. They have aided the situation in various ways as custodians of the City’s economic landscape.
If the city planning does not provide strategic selling points for vendors to occupy, where do we expect them to go? The current matala (open markets) are either full or far away from foot traffic.
The City of Windhoek has only one incubation center and there is no practical programme in place that continuously supports micro entrepreneurs and no practical support for entrepreneurship at large scale, or for manufacturers, for them to grow and create jobs.
How do we expect people to earn and sustain themselves in this costly city and economy?
The reason people are selling out there in different and uncomfortable places within the city is because there are no jobs. The economy or the current number of enterprises and platforms cannot employ them.
Secondly, it also means there are not enough strategic selling or trading places for micro entrepreneurs, while those in existence are not strategically positioned for the street vendors to occupy them.
That is why they are popping up in different corners of the city.
Why is every punishment toward the one selling in the street? Why doesn’t CoW management reflect on the difficult question: why is informality and street/open space trading increasing?
Observing from the stand as a researcher, and once a vendor, the situation is a consequential act of inadequate support for entrepreneurs at the grassroots level, and a planning issue that ignores micro enterprises.
It is an act of inadequate support from the city in creating an environment for every resident who cannot find a job to utilize other means and earn.
Furthermore, it also shows a lack of accountability from the city, given that the stagnant Windhoek economy is no longer creating opportunities, nor is it maintaining the existing jobs.
Instead of unleashing the wrath of the City Police, how about the City reflects and finds solutions to the stagnant City economy, to promote and support entrepreneurs and attract more capital for manufacturers.
To a certain extent, there is an appreciation of why the MURD Minister is being hard on local authorities to ensure municipalities are accountable for their mandate and responsibility to the residents.
Local authorities, including the City of Windhoek, have been harsh on open-space traders and street vendors, but they are barely accountable for conceiving the ballooning informality.
City Police is becoming a tool for deployment against those who are genuinely earning a living, those who are rejected by our cruel and stagnant economy. We will need brave lawyers to stand up and represent such a segment of the economy who are being handled by City Police at the instruction of CoW management.
CoW management must not shift responsibility for building an enabling environment for entrepreneurship to flourish and to create opportunities for the masses.
Sending City Police around is not a sustainable solution. People are hungry, and they are legitimately seeking money to pay for your services.
The city has a pile of debts just like other municipalities because the city residents are struggling to earn; preventing them from utilising legal non-harmful means to earn in the meantime can be considered counterproductive.
There are no jobs out there; malls are empty, shops are closing down. It is not a curse; it just means people have no income to spend, and if the situation continues, more shops will downscale too.
The Windhoek economy is driven by earnings of the informal economy. People who spend are those from the informal economy. The more you strangle them, the more the Windhoek economy suffers.
Informality is born by the economic reality of the city and the country, and it will not be fixed by the City Police Force but by sensitive, well-informed policies and bylaws that promote entrepreneurship at every level.
The City’s debts will pile up with new high fees and high unemployment.
If the city’s management cannot create a better environment and infrastructure that supports entrepreneurship and innovation, it has no right to strangle those finding a way to survive.
Ignoring economic reality to maintain city aesthetics or looks won’t solve anything; it will just mask the socio-economic problems that will eventually lead to chaos and crime.
