A LOCAL non-governmental organisation, the Community Water Alliance (CWA), says decentralisation of the informal market selling points is important in the fight against Covid-19 and enables vendors to continue trading during national lockdowns.
This comes as the organisation held a clean-up campaign at Tsiga Market in Mbare yesterday, which was attended by officials from City of Harare, United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) volunteers, Environmental Management Agency (Ema) and the Zimbabwe Republic Police.
CWA information officer Christopher Gohori told the Daily News yesterday that the decentralisation of the selling points makes implementation of Covid-19 preventive measures easier.
“Most Mbare residents depend on informal trading and strict lockdown measures make their life hard so markets should be decongested so that they can comply with social distancing, making it possible for them to operate during lockdown.
“Tsiga Market is recognised by the council as a market and has plans to upgrade the area. Unfortunately, it has been vacant and has been turned into a dumpsite, so the clean-up will assist in the initiative to create more organised market spaces,” Gohori said.
The clean-up initiative was coordinated by Oxfam and financed by the UNDP.
Provincial environmental education and publicity officer for the Harare Metropolitan Province, Batsirai Sibanda, also said illegal dumpsites harm the environment and contaminate water sources.
“Waste dumped has a liquid residue that seeps to the ground and these harmful substances soil underground water leading to boreholes being labelled unfit for human consumption so waste should be managed at household level so as to stop illegal dumpsites,” Sibanda said.
by Melissa Chatikobo
