. Lusambo

By DAVID KANDUZA, SYLVIA MWEETWA and MUSONDA MANGILASHI –
POLICE in Kitwe had to use teargas yesterday to drive off hordes of street vendors who had returned to the corridors and other places they were chased from just over a month ago by the civic authorities.
Businesses in the central business district rushed to bring down the shutters on their shops and offices as council police, reinforced by Zambia Police, moved in to drive the vendors off.
Police said 35 vendors had been arrested and charged with conduct likely to cause breach of the peace.
Copperbelt police chief Charity Katanga said among those arrested were 10 men and 25 women who were detained at Kitwe Central Police.
The vendors briefly withstood the council police, with some claiming they had been allowed to get back to trade on the streets by Copperbelt Minister Bowman Lusambo but were forced to flee the city centre, many leaving their wares behind as riot police arrived.
The vendors later mobilised themselves and started throwing stones at the police who responded with tear gas.
Ms Katanga said the vendors went back on the streets after a woman only identified as Bana Mpundu allegedly went into Chisokone market and told traders that she had received instructions from Lusaka that the vendors should go back on the streets.
Mr Lusambo said he would issue a statement today while the United Streets Vendors Foundation Cooperative (USVFC) said it had nothing to do with the turn of events in a city that was just beginning to get used to streets liberated from vendors.
Kitwe City Council (KCC) mayor, who led the campaign to rid the streets of the vendors in January said there would be no return to the old days of cluttered streets and corridors.
“The decision to clear the streets is final…the law will take its course with those who want to bring confusion,” he said.
Some vendors spoken to said that three months had passed without being allocated trading spaces the council promised them and they wanted to carry on earning a living while the council found them alternative trading places.
Maureen Mulenga, a vendor, said the traders had come back on the streets because they had stayed for so long without trading.
Another said the vendors were the ones who voted for Patriotic Front but were surprised that they were being mistreated.
He added; “If our minister can allow us to trade who is the council to stop us?”
Others complained about the poor state of Chisokone Market where they were taken, stating that it was in a deplorable state.
The USVFC coordinator Paul Kamusa said some unkempt vendors were trying to fuel confusion and maintained that members of the association had been engaged in the process.
Kitwe District Commissioner Binwell Mpundu said the people of Kitwe were in support of the council’s campaign to keep the city clean.
By early evening calm had returned to the city centre but police were still keeping a visible presence.