Police in Lusaka have used teargas to disperse Marketeers who staged a riot to protest the inadequate trading places.
The Marketeers who are mostly women initially planned to march to State House but were blocked by riot police.
A similar riot ensured on Friday in Kanyama and some parts of the Central Business District.
This morning, the Marketeers wanted to seek audience with President Edgar Lungu over the continue closure of their businesses in the wake of the Cholera outbreak.
Confused erupted this morning when the vendors who were recently evicted from the streets were today allowed to trade from the gutted City Market thereby displacing the Marketeers who were initially trading from the Market before it was gutted.
Traders who were chatting “Njala, Njala, Njala” said in interviews that late President Michael Sata allowed street vending because he had a heart it the common person.
They mobilized themselves around 10:00 Hours and headed to State House via Independence Avenue to talk to President Lungu before police and Zambia Army officers intercepted them in Kamwala area near the UBA branch.
Police officers pushed back the traders but the determined protestors responded by sitting on the road and blocked off the road.
Police officers quickly resorted to discharging teargas after they failed to negotiations with the traders to vacate the road which saw the trades scamper in all directions.
The situation caused panic around Kamwala area and businesses quickly closed off all the shops.
the effects of pabwato
More money in their pockets, and none whatsoever, in ours.
No street vendors, please. Just lock them up. What, this cholera thing was a wake up call. No more street vending.
What is happening in our country Kanshi?
You promised them more money in their pockets, Give it to them PF instead of giving tear gas.
Why did they want to march to State House? Did they think that Edgar Cholera Lungu will do something to help them?
He will only be seen in 2021 giving out a few kwacha of the “President Empowerment Fund” that he has not stolen yet.
And he does not want CHOLERA in State House! That is only for poor Zambians who cannot afford to take a plane for medical treatment in another country!
The street vendors on this one do not have a case, the issue is simple do not trade on the street because you are either spreading Cholera or you are at risk of contracting it yourself!However the State must really prioritise where they spend their millions- those Luxury SUVs the Lusaka City Council have been buying serve no purpose – that money couldve been used on other more pressing matters such as dustbins, drainages and clean public toilets in markets and townships. Lastly whatever happened to the sleeping Lusaka Mayor’s plan to copy the City of London’s street vending program whereby traders are allocated certain back alley streets on specific days of the week such as Monday, Wednesday and Saturday?
Bane, FAKANI pressure pali ka CHAKOLWA. That’s exactly how we kicked out KK.
Just what the hell is going on in Zambia at the moment
Give people alternative before “FIRING” them from their “JOBs”. They resorted to street vending NOT out of choice but becoz of RB’s MMD & PF failed economic & education policies.
Lungu, please give them the 500,000 jobs you LIED to them during the campaigns.
This is what Trump meant when he said: “SH**THOLES”
“Njala, Njala, Njala”……this sums it up, and no further comments.
And yet someone wants these people to fast and pray to have their bellies filled.
And one will stand up and blame the opposition for organizing.
REALLY?
I don’t agree with you chaps. What is happening is that the masses have found street vending too easy and comfortable to abandon and go for other forms of work. Oroso, they are now handling cash on daily basis and the more money you have even more money you want. Theirs is to make quick money and enjoy- some of them even neglect or abandon their babies at home. Like Panda has said we need to take bold steps as a nation. Poverty is everywhere in Africa and we cannot just blame governments, though partially they are also to blame for being slow actioners but it will take some time before African countries can rise from these doldrums. Tunisia right now is pending a second Arab spring in spite of you know~!.
Someone please show some leadership and address the people responsibly. These are the voters who listened to you during campaigns. And now they want to listen to you again
These are the effects of the MMD & Ayatollah rushed privatization. These street venders are the same street kids and abandoned orphans your myopic privatization produced.
They grew up on the streets, leant to make babies on the streets but their highest organs emanated from make money on these same streets.
These streets have been good to them and that’s all they know, now you have to teach an old dog, new tricks and that would be easy.
Meanwhile, they will learn howbeit slowly but they have to handled with care and should not be used as a political football, they are fellow smart people of our collective enterprise.
@ Lusaka Times
Grief!
Do a tiny bit of editing before you release such a lousy text, full of mistakes!
PF standing trial in the People’s Court.
PF and their Inonge lied to people that they will repair city market. Where is money fundraised?
Change is hard to accept. We cannot accommodate all marketeers immediately. Things have changed. President Lungu and Hon Chitalu Chilufya have handled this crisis very well. They must be commended. Bear with us and stay clean. Keep your cholera at home and away from the streets.
Tell lungu to show them to the 500, 000 jobs he promised then ….
You are like a pastor who, with a belly full, encourages his congregants to pray ceaseless for solutions to problems when his solution is the congregants’ sweat and blood.
Just throw some ‘cholera’ in their midst. I am sure it will be far more effective in getting them to disperse than even spending money on teargas etc…
Ripping what you sow. The time bomb was like a slow burning fuse so slow that you forget about it until it explodes. And this what some Kambwili says is a simple problem. I’m proud of our copperbelt traders. …very civilized and very patient.
Khakis, it was a huge time bomb!
Our great leader the Late His Excellency Michael Chilufya Sata accommodated the vendors on the street, knowing very well that he would mobilize resources for permanent modern structures.
Unfortunately he was taken away before most of his projects could bear fruit. Let not the Tumbwilis of this world cheat our vendors.
That open street vending era is gone, thanks to President Edgar Chagwa Lungu. In fact thanks to Cholera and the rapid response by the Hon Chitalu Chilufya.
Lusaka may well be on its way to being called the cleanest town once order is restored.
@Mr Kudos, you are partly right. Some markets were built at very high cost, e.g Nakadoli in Kitwe and Chilenje Market in Lusaka. These are now white elephants because the people prefer to trade in the street were “there is business”. When I was growing up, I would walk for about twenty minutes to go to the market to buy bread, saladi ya K5 and mpilu. The bus stop was about ten minutes walk from our home and I would gladly walk there, but nowadays, everypoint on the streets is a bus stop ad a market. I think we need be disciplined as a nation to ensure order and prevent these diseases. Oh I forgot about taverns and butcheries were we used to go and buy Chibuku for the mudala and nyama ya mixed cut. Nowadays, shebeens and butcheries are all over the place.
@ Panda, also people who buy from street vendors contribute to the mess. If we all refused to buy from the streets and buy from the proper markets, these people will be forced to go to the abandoned markets.
Hunger in a hungry nations – this is bound to escalate!
We have a government that is both deaf and blind.
So HH will allow street vending and cholera just for a vote?
Street vending will be allowed in an organised clean orderly way…….with the same street venders paying for cleanliness either in labour or cash….
Well as much as we want to have a clean a a cholera free Lusaka, we also need to think about those who earn their living by being on the streets. Govt cannot just kick them out of the streets and pretend they do not exist. They need to provide them temporally trading places before they find a permanent solution. Those street vendors have responsibilities and they must be treated with respect and caution.
Treated with cholera germ?
Ndanji khaki. Its unfortunately that someone has to be sacrificed. Peoples lives have been lost and immediate action has to be taken. Few vendors claim to be protecting their families by endangering almost the whole nation? This doesn’t make sense. Let people learn the hard fact that if you are doing something wrong reality will catch up. Whether you are building on drainage trading in the street reality will catch up. Unfortunately its street vendors this time. We need a pure culture change.
JUST LOCK THEM UP.THEY DONT REASON.
I WISH YOUR MOTHER WAS A MARKETER .. YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND WHAT THESE PIPO ARE GOING THROUGH. HAVE PITY
Come to Kitwe you Lusaka illiterates and see how town center looks like including Chisokone market.
How do you find street vendors and street kids in kitwe, when most of them have trekked to lusaka, even poverty upcoming musicians like mac2 and his young bro and jk.
You overate your small party too much. Unfortunately you won’t have a chance to prove anything.
Very clever at getting out of tight situations? What’s the population since you pretend to be clever. I haven’t trekked to Lusaka so I don’t know what you are saying.
It’s a TKO for the hungry stomachs. Please keep the president under house arrest in Chawama; to be released on bail buy only after promptly returning to the national treasury all the money PF have stolen to date.
These vendors must accept the fact that land is a limited resource. The government cannot accommodate all of them at once. Just like in the job market, there are a lot of people out there searching for jobs but it is just not possible to employ everybody. No one should be allowed back on the streets. Sanity has to prevail in our Town Centre. Street vendors bring a lot of dirt.
LT : Marketeers who staged a riot to protest the inadequate trading places. The Marteteers were demonstrating and not staging a riot. Please ! which journalist schools do we go to ?
The root cause of these street vending is the mismanagement of the privatisation program by HH for his personal gains. You the chap sold our mines and industries on the Copperbelt with impunity and had no plan for tetrenchees who died in masses and those that surv
That’s the problem people don’t want to see. The MMD had promised us a safety net to protect us from the job losses as a result of privatization of industries. But alas, the safety net turned out to be the streets. Government should not relent even if it means losing elections. The bible says spare the rod and spoil the child.
Someone said if you think education is important, then try ignorance.Some dimwits still think that HH sold the mines and outwitted the entire govt machinery. I cant even understand that in this time and age we still have people with very low thinking capacity.What a shame.
I meant if you think education is expensive
You are in your 7TH year of power but still crying abt what MMD did or did not do. Then what shud be said abt you? Introspection bane.
contd
…survived resorted to selling on the streets. Before the mines were sold by Ichilema Zambia did not know street vending.
So these victims need to be told the truth and the truth is HH who never cared about of the consequences of his greenness
And before the PF rats zambia did not know $17 billion debt…….
Malinso you are young in kaunda days we just never used to call them Street vendors, but we had a local name we called them mishanga sellers, apart from mishangas they would stock soap, sweets etc. Do not argue kid you was not there.
This is not about HH. It is about how the Pamafi iFingi party are failing to handle a crisis. Yes the clean up was well done. But the President chooses to bond behind the State House walls and fails to use his office to effective communicate with the governed.
Mr President, the country is facing very serious issues beyond the pay scale of the ministers. You, sir, need to articulate a coherent cross ministry strategy or might I say “vision”. If we continue like this we will really go into reverse and confirm the status of $hithole.
@ MWAKALE
Just for your own free information, we not only very educated but more intelligent than you think. Why do think there is a thing called history? HH sold and mismanaged the Privatisation program and as long time exists, this fact will NEVER go away, understand?
HH is the major contributor of mass exodus of people who entrenched to Lusaka and only to find themselves selling on the streets. Truth hates but it’s got to told. He will never rule Zambia
Infact this has to be amplified so that all those who were not born then should know that Supreme leader HH has since put the privatisation loot in the paradise papers…
Traders who were chatting “Njala, Njala, Njala” said in interviews that late President Michael Sata allowed street vending because he had a heart it the common person.
No late President Michael Sata allowed street vending because he couldnt solve the problem.
He then turned it into his solution for obtaining votes
PF was saying it is HH causing the riots in Kanyama. They always shift the blame. Now it is coming to hault them. Also calling for prayer when action is needed on the ground. Prayer should be left to the churches to deal with it. Confusing govt and church will damage PF.
President Edgar Lungu
I have never liked you and your rival HH. I just feel your 2 parties have no ideologies. They are based on the belief and power in an individual. BUT Mr President if you clean the City of street vendors. You will go in history as the president who cleaned the City. This will be your legacy.
The problem is lack of communication with these people. What has happened in Kitwe did not just happen over night and in brutal confrontation with the marketeers. We saw updates of meeting after meeting with the marketeers before they were relocated. and the result is there for all to see, nobody resisted. You cant just wake up and command people to do this and that,no matter how good your intentions maybe if you dont engage them,they are bound to resist! Engage the people on the ground not in press conferences, and give them direction, communicate with them and this you term resistance will not be there!! The Kanyama riot was caused because there was no prior communication for people to vacant that area….
**…..for people to vacate that area….
It is mind numming to think that PF have put the country in a 17 billion debt yet millions of our people have no jobs let alone clean drinking water a safe sanitation………yet the corrupt theives of PF try to pass off them self as pro poor while cholera hits the poor hard and the most they can think of is a rush to pay 1 million $s for a truck with a pump, 42 times and form a national airline to cater for their corrupt travells…….
Friends the issue is that remember that Marketeers who were relocated for reconstruction of the gutted City market went into Simon Mwewa lane and became street vendors waiting for the now delayed reconstruction of City Market. Now the marketeers in Simon Mwewa lane and all other street vendors are evicted from their trading places due to cholera.
Then you want to move street vendors into gutted City market which already has owners whom you have also evicted from Simon Mwewa lane (where you parked them). what do you expect the original marketeers turned Simon mwewa street vendors to do when you give their house to someone who didn’t have a house(Town street vendors)?? If you ask me they have every right to protest!
You will hear the PF machinery saying its UPND cadres rioting again in a desperate effort to uzap power
HE Dr. ECL will sort things out!
The PF rats like above can try to pass on blame for street vending onto individuals or past governments but the glaring facts they can not pass on is the hudge debt they have bestowed upon us and still there are no jobs , with dysfunctional ministries and GRZ depts at all levels…..street vending is not a problem if cleanliness and order is observed ….the problem is the corrupt rats of PF use theses same street venders as their enforcers and dancers for lungu at airports…..they are a law upon themselves with the local councils impotent…..we have the PF rat SG on film calling for their thugs to steal plots and take over public spaces…..with full blessing of the corrupt theif fraud convict in state house….
Kaili, they never take responsibility. It’s always sonta someone else.
Now they are even blaming Sata and Street Vendors. Ideally, should have justsaid, people we messed up things and we are correcting the situation, and this is how we are going to do it. I bet Zambians would understand.
Instead, we are witnessing teargassing poor people who are actually the victims and calling for those st.up.id prayers and fasting. Da.mn.
ECL pHYSICALLY WENT TO cHOLERA HIT PLACES, HE GAVE A SPEECH AND DIAGNISED THE CAUSE, NOW U ARE FRUSTRATING GOVERNMNET EFFORST TO COMBAT THE DISEASE, IS THIS PATRIOTISM? EVEN HH said keep calm while Government finds a solution, please give us space to find a solution , we havent forgottten U, THE TIME U SPEND MARCHING COSTS U MONEY COULD HAVE MADE SOMETHING FOR YOUR FAMILY AT THE GUTTED MARKET
70 people have died with thousands losing the lively hoods ati lungu
“….HE GAVE A SPEECH AND DIAGNISED THE CAUSE, NOW U ARE FRUSTRATING GOVERNMNET EFFORST…”
Hehehe kwena being a PF kaponya rat is something else…..did all those people have to die ? And I suggest we give lungu the Nobel prize for telling us that filth can cause cholera ….
Insala
Njala, njala so that you feed us with SH!T.
No, no, guys. First remove Cholera you brought, then we find a better way of trading.
Lock them up. Simple. We will feed you with clean food in jail.
Go back to your villages until further notice.
This is a ZERO OPTION.
Street vending has been there before during unip era …those days vendors used to be called Black marketeers.Then in mmd the late President Chiluba had put a vendors desk at state house specifically to address problems faced by vendors, but still the problem was not sorted out.Today the vending issue has grown overtime due to our leaders turning a blind eye to the situation.
My opinion is that the government must not bow down to this pressure coming from the marketeers. We need a clean Lusaka that we can be proud of. But at the same time the government must quickly chip in to look for a place to accommodate these people because for sure their livelihood has been negatively affected. I know change comes with its own challenges but over time it pays off, therefore in the long term with the clean city we shall have no cholera, there will be sanity and orderliness in the city. This is the point the marketeers must be missing, they are somehow shortsighted. Let this again not be politicized by HH and his UPND to gain political mileage because he is the major cause of street vending resulting from the mismanaged privatization of the mines.
RIP. This is legacy for SATA. Did he foresee he would be gone too soon. Short memories we have. Remember that Prof Nkandu Luo had initiated a programme to have the streets gotten rid of these vendors. What happened???????
You people think the street venders want to street venders by choice ??? No this is not the case for 80% of them, they street vend because there are no jobs……if lungu provided the 1 million jobs pa he lied about, you wont see most of them…..
“Traders who were chatting “Njala, Njala, Njala” said in interviews that late President Michael Sata allowed street vending because he had a heart it the common person”.
Just becoz Sata allowed street vending that doesn’t make it right. That was a wrong move and it shouldn’t be repeated again. It was done in bad faith, he(Sata) just wanted to gain political mileage not knowing that the decision will have a negative impact in future.
Off topic but WHO WRITES THESE ARTICLES?? Is there anyone to proof read? I usually ignore the grammatical errors on this site but this is unacceptable and so unproffessional. Maybe I can write for LT for free.
Where are the 500,000 jobs that were promised? Infrastructure development in Zambia is extensive and arguably, $$millions have gone into this venture at all costs including borrowing to facilitate this programme. Yet no job creation has come out of this. People are looking for the promised jobs or an environment that could enhance opportunities to become self employed and improve ones’ social standing. Maybe this cholera issue is going to teach our law-makers something along the lines of putting our country and the people first and in the process define ‘service’ to the people that put them into office.
Go to the markets. You fools. Muli bafiko sana. They are to blame. They never keep their places clean. Don’t allow them on the street again. Let njala ibanyokole until they accept to sell in the markets.
Atase!!
No more street vending at all costs!
Just keep firing teargas until they swallow enough and keep away from the streets.
Meanwhile, Zambia Correction Services, have you cleaned and prepared mukobeko as I told you last week?
The street vendors have paid the price of gross
mismanagement by Lungu & PF thugs.
Are mammals involved in this?
Mukobeko deserves an Under Five.
Njala yati nyonkola…make a plan GRZ
You wonder why the colonial government restricted the movement of people from villages to town? They foresaw this. Villages are much cleaner and safe healthwise. I don’t know about other villages but where I come from that’s the standard.
The Village I come from is cleaner than Lusaka: That is a fact because there is no chorela and Chorela has never been mentioned there.
Ala tapalati Njala, Marketers Umulomo wait and see
They say Mr Sata had a heart for the people that’s why he allowed street vending. …you left out and enhanced chances of cholera outbreaks. Loving your child don’t mean you should let him do wrong things.
Is Hazaluza Hagain at the center of it all?
When HH privatised the mines which used to collect garbage from the compounds dirt ensured. They had disbanded the mines in units and were never aware that this will be the effect. He put his money in Panama and pretends as if he was not one of the causer of this! UPND are dull Very dull! No wonder it is a party of Under Fives.
Indeed MCS allowed many wrong things he was confusion personified. Relatives in high positions, thugs as ministers, crooks as advisers and visionless persons to care take his party and government. Kapata, Mumbi, Miles, CK, Davis, Kaponyo, etc all products of a man who was not well.
Can these protesters please protest with a copy of their ZRA tax returns and receipts of paid tax. Why should people work and run businesses pay tax and yet all services be directed to non tax payers. Advise them to register themselves with PACRA as self employed and ZRA for Turn over tax before we can start taking orders of what they want. Protestors if they do wish to protest should be limited to contributors. Turn over tax is only 3% much cheaper than those who pay income tax as employees so they should not be scared of tax. Pay then have your say.