Copyright times
By Clever Mwale: Barely a day after the grand opening of the new Lilongwe Bridge, vendors have restarted selling their merchandise on the pedestrian path which is normally a prohibited area for trade. The bridge, touted as a symbol of modern urban management, has already become a scene of chaos — filled with vendors, noise, and makeshift stalls that block pedestrian movement. By mid-morning, the walkway meant for pedestrians’ use had been completely overtaken, which according to reports, forced city police into another round of reactionary clean-up operations. The development has given rise to calls for the Lilongwe City Council to put firm and have a strategy to sustain sanity in the capital, where street vending continues to thrive despite countless directives against such. However, LCC officials insist they are doing their part to enforce existing laws against illegal vending in undesignated places. LCC Chief Executive Officer MacLoud Kadammanja said the council has been engaging leaders of vendors and other stakeholders to end the illegal occupation of pedestrian spaces. “We have been engaging various stakeholders including the leaders of the vendors to help in ending this bad practice,” Kadammanja said. He said the council has introduced strategies such as civic education and the deployment of city police to guard the spaces, but admitted the problem persists. The CEO further pointed out that the council has been supporting vendors through business training and by linking them to financial institutions as part of its enterprise development agenda. Despite these efforts, vendors continue to defy regulations even as the city maintains that it has enough designated markets — some of which remain nearly empty. “What we need now is to make sure that vendor leadership is empowered by law to take action on those who deliberately choose to disobey the law,” he added.
