Food vendors resist eviction

LEKOPANYE MOOKETSI
Correspondent | Monday May 2, 2011 00:00

 

The food vendors had earlier in the day been called to the police station for a briefing and it was after this meeting that the police raided their businesses. 

On Saturday evening, the police raided the food vendors again and declared that even other small traders selling cigarettes and boiled eggs not operate that evening. But the food vendors refused to budge, those busy frying meat, boldly told the police officers that they were not going to move. 

First there was a consignment of police officers headed by a female sub inspector.  She ordered one of the food vendors to wrap up her stuff and take it to the police station, but the informal trader told the police officer that she should take the goods herself.

It was then that the other food vendors came to the rescue of their colleague.  They yelled at the police to leave them alone as they were earning an honest living.  The irate food vendors said they did not know how the police expected them to earn a living. They asked the police whether they wanted to see them parading in the streets like sex workers.  They pointed at some commercial sex workers and said 'you are leaving these people and harassing us.  Do you also want us to join this business?'

Members of the public also joined the vendors to remonstrate with the police. The vendors said the police should have given them a warning before conducting the raid. 'What do you expect us to do with all this phaletshe,' they shouted.  The defiant vendors wondered whether the police did not have better things to do. 

After heated exchanges with the vendors the police beat a retreat, threatening to bring reinforcements.  After about two hours, an assistant superintendent turned up with an inspector.  The senior police officer ordered each of the vendors to close shop.  But the vendors resisted his orders and went about their business.  Some of them told him that they were prepared to go to jail. 

The vendors insisted that it was not the business of the police to implement by-laws without the presence of the by-law enforcement officers. They said the police had taken advantage of the public officers' strike to pounce on them.

But the police officers insisted that they are empowered to implement any law in the country.  As the vendors pleaded that this was their sole means of livelihood, the senior police officer told them that it was not his business.  He was only there to implement the law. The police were forced to leave as the food vendors who were mostly women, defied them.  On Sunday evening, the food vendors went about their business as usual. 

But one of the vendors described the police action as discriminatory.  She said they had earlier on, confiscated her goods and charged her.  She also claimed that the police had stolen the meat that they had taken to the police station. She said after her goods were released the meat was missing. 

The food vendors are making lucrative business at the shopping complex at night because of the nightclubs in the area. Licensed establishments have been complaining about the vendors who are operating the mall. However, the station commander for Gaborone West Police Station, superintendent Bonnie Bareki was not available for comment as his phones went unanswered.