By CHUSA SICHONE –
LOCAL Government and Housing Minister Stephen Kampyongo says Government cannot remove vendors from the streets without finding alternative trading places for them.
Mr Kampyongo said his ministry had not turned a blind eye on street vending and that was why it was getting into Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement to address the situation.
Addressing Patriotic Front officials in Lusaka, Mr Kampyongo said it would be irresponsible for Government to evict vendors from the streets without offering them more decent and safer places to operate from.
“I will give you an example of what we are trying to do along Lumumba Road. We have these associations that are looking after the street vendors and we have made them to take stock of who is trading where and the numbers.
“So what we have done is to identify some of these places and we have identified another place within Lusaka where we are talking to some investor who is trying to come along a PPP programme to try and see what infrastructure we can put up along Lumumba Road where we have paved,” he said.
Mr Kampyongo expressed concern about the conditions vendors operated in while on the streets and assured that the infrastructure to be constructed on Lumumba Road would contain, among other things, ablution blocks, which traders had difficulties to access on the streets.
Mr Kampyongo said vendors would be segmented according the merchandise they were selling.