Marondera Drafts Zanu PF Vendors Into Municipal Police To Drive Out Their Colleagues From CBD

MARONDERA: Informal traders in the Mashonaland East town are up in arms after the council hired Zanu PF aligned vendors to help municipal police drive out their colleagues from the CBD.

Marondera council, which is failing to raise money to retrench over 200 employees, has increased its bloated workforce by employing some vendors as security police officers.

The new recruits are mandated to bar fellow vendors from trading at undesignated places.

Affected vendors feel betrayed by their comrades who have been hijacked by the council to turn their backs on fellow traders.

The latest development comes two weeks after Marondera Central MP, Lawrence Katsiru, told vendors to defy a council directive to move from the illegal selling points to new designated sites.

During the meeting, vendors begged Katsiru to consult with Marondera mayor, Anthony Makwindi, and ask him to stop the evictions as the new selling points were not strategically positioned.

Simon Nemaware, the chairperson of the Marondera Vendors’ Association, at the weekend said Katsiru was a disappointment because he had allowed fellow vendors to be recruited and turn against their colleagues.

“We have been trying to get hold of Katsiru and understand what is going on but failed as we are always told that he is busy in Parliament or with party issues,” Nemaware said.

“What angers most is that it’s only less than two months since we voted for Katsiru. Moreover, when we met him recently he seemed to have understood our plight but we have discovered that we were taken for a ride.

“We are angry that when the MP and the mayor met, they decided to hire vendors who are known Zanu PF supporters as municipality security officers who are now chasing us away from the streets daily,” one of the affected vendors said.

The council has since last year been failing to raise $1 million to cull its workforce.

Efforts to get a comment from Katsiru were fruitless as his mobile phone was not being answered. source-newzimbabwe