Hawkers ‘time to eat’ as election date approaches

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Photo/FILE New selling points are created outside designated areas to accommodate more sellers. 

By DANIEL WESANGULA dwesangula@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Saturday, January 14  2012 at  22:30

Every election year, Nairobi undergoes a change that leaves the city battered and bruised.

Basic services like garbage collection, security and general law and order go to the dogs as hawkers and street families take over city pavements, and the authorities conveniently look the other way.

The city deteriorates to the level of a man-eat-man struggle as the authorities engage in a game of shifting blame.

As he walks through Muthurwa Market Mr Hosea Mwangi explains that this is a common occurrence every election year.

Licences are renewed and issued according to political allegiances. New selling points are created outside designated areas to accommodate more sellers.

“It is space for votes,” the hawkers’ spokesman said, adding that this happens with the full knowledge and participation of City Hall officials.

“Look at it this way. We have a town clerk and a mayor who have publicly declared their political ambitions. Do you think they would want to tamper with potential voters?”

The hawkers are not bothered. They embrace the situation and make the most of it.

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“Even the running battles you see between us and askaris are not to rid the city of hawkers but to create space for those sympathetic to the causes of politicians. That is the truth. They know it; we know it,” he said.

Even more than the residents, the business community is feeling the heat. “They know no one will push them back.

“That is why they push boundaries. That is why you will find them at the entrances of our shops. Or in our parking spaces.

“During this period, the city by-laws are put on hold because of the elections,” said Timothy Muriuki, the chairman of the Nairobi Central Business District Association.

Mr Muriuki says that elections should not be an excuse to erase the gains made over the last four years.

“Even if some NCC officials have political ambitions, they should delegate the day-to-day running of the city to the council’s executives. They have no votes to look for,” he said.

But hawkers are not the only concern. Around 2003, the Narc government took it upon itself to remove street families from cities and major towns.

But the programme soon collapsed, and the previously resettled families made their way back to the streets. There has yet to be another such programme.

Mr Muriuki is on a committee charged with ridding the city of street families. He says a lot more than relocation to transit centres needs to be done before any long-term solution is found.

“We must profile these families first; learn their origin and ages, then break this information down into achievable goals.

“The solution is not loading them into lorries and shipping them off to a far-flung place.”

After staying off the streets for a couple of years, the families that once caused havoc within the central business district are back. And this time, they are much more than a nuisance.

“They even infiltrate our businesses and rob our clients,” said Mr Mwangi of the hawkers association.

Investigations by the Sunday Nation show that some street families and parking attendants act as a cover for larger crime syndicates targeting city residents.

“It is no surprise that carjackings within the central business district are on the increase. Public parking lots are no longer safe,” Mr Muriuki said, placing blame squarely on both the provincial administration and the City Council.

Efforts to obtain comment from the Mayor’s office or the Provincial Commissioner’s office were unsuccessful.“The City Council inspectorate department and the police are failing. What was being done well a few years back when they had almost disappeared from the streets and is not being done now? Someone is sleeping on the job,” he said.

The council has also been accused of turning a blind eye to the myriad problems that have recurred during Philip Kisia’s tenure as Town Clerk.

In addition to the re-emergence of street families and parking boys, hawkers and mounds of garbage have also resurfaced.

But Mr Kisia says the problem is bigger than many realise. “Very many people look down on these informal traders.

“They are not on the streets because they want to be. It is their only source of livelihood. This is not to say that we have become relaxed in any way.”

He insists that no politics come into play when dealing with issues of the city.
“If we lock these traders out of active employment, what options, other than crime, will they have? We need to give them hope.”

“And as residents we cannot just wish these traders away. Unemployment is real, and as the City Council, instead of closing down these revenue avenues, we allocate them designated places to trade,” he told Sunday Nation.

His 2,000 officers are charged with keeping 800,000 informal traders in check.

“We need people who provide solutions. We cannot always blame others and lament then expect things to be better.

“As a council we have provided space, we have provided and continue to provide modern kiosks from which these traders will continue to trade.”