By Victor Fanuel
HARARE — Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) leader Obert Masaraure has delivered a brutal verdict on Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe’s latest attempt to clear Harare’s streets.
Masaraure said Garwe’s crackdown would do little more than clear the streets temporarily if government failed to tackle the unemployment, low wages and shrinking formal economy driving thousands of Zimbabweans into vending.
“It would be easier for Nelson Chamisa to dislodge Zanu PF from power than for Daniel Garwe to evict vendors from the CBD without first addressing the underlying crisis of unemployment and poor remuneration in the formal sector,” Masaraure said.
His comments come as government’s latest seven-day ultimatum to vendors expired on Wednesday, September 9, with Harare deploying at least 300 municipal police officers in the opening phase of the “Chenesa Harare campaign.”
The operation began at the intersection of E.D. Mnangagwa Road, formerly Enterprise Road, and Samora Machel Avenue, with authorities warning that the campaign would spread to other parts of the capital before being extended to other urban centres.
Garwe has defended the crackdown as necessary to restore order, sanitation and pedestrian access, saying illegal vending has compromised the functioning of the capital and undermined formal businesses.
However, on Wednesday, vendors flooded Harare’s CBD in open defiance of Garwe’s directive, signalling that the government’s latest crackdown faces resistance from traders who depend on the streets for their livelihoods.
Government has also directed vendors operating outside designated areas to relocate to authorised markets.
Masaraure, however, argues that the government is attempting to police an economic crisis into submission.
“Local government minister Daniel Garwe’s crackdown should not be presented merely as an enforcement exercise, but as a confrontation with the economic failures that have pushed people into the informal sector.
“Civil servants are increasingly doubling as vendors to supplement inadequate salaries, while unemployed graduates are also being forced into vending to survive,” he said.
Zimbabwe’s own official statistics underscore the scale of the informal economy.
ZimStat’s preliminary Economic Census found 204,798 operational establishments, of which 76.1% were informal, leaving 23.9% classified as formal.
Labour-market figures tell a similarly uncomfortable story.
ZimStat’s latest figures put Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate at 20.7% in the second quarter of 2025.
The same survey found that 58.5% of employed people were working in the informal sector, compared with 35.8% in the formal sector.
Masaraure queried that government cannot claim to be restoring order while repeatedly removing people from the very spaces where they earn their livelihoods.
“The central question is whether the government can claim to be restoring order while continuing to ignore the conditions that make vending a necessity for thousands of Zimbabweans.
“Without addressing unemployment and the lack of viable formal-sector opportunities, evictions risk becoming a temporary removal of symptoms rather than a solution to the underlying crisis,” said Masaraure.
Zimbabwe has already witnessed the most dramatic version of such an approach through Operation Murambatsvina in 2005.
The government’s campaign demolished informal business structures and homes across urban areas, with a United Nations assessment estimating that about 700,000 people lost homes, livelihoods or both.
Masaraure went further, framing the crackdown as a class issue and accusing the wealthy and political elites of seeking to push poor people out of visible urban spaces.
“The rich accumulate their wealth on the backs of working people but they view the working class as filthy people who must be disposed of.
“The vendor who pays multiple taxes in the name of VAT, sugar tax costs and IMTT among other tax contributions is contributing to the luxuries of the rich,” he said.
Garwe’s ministry, however, maintains that informal trading itself is not being outlawed and that vendors will be allowed to operate from designated markets.
The government has also directed local authorities to register and place compliant traders in authorised structures.
