HARARE, ZIMBABWE — The vendors rarely see it coming. The municipal police, some in plainclothes and others in uniform, move through the crowd silent and unnoticed. When they finally strike, panic erupts. Vendors scatter, trampling their goods and grabbing what they can. A few are arrested. Their wares are seized and tossed into the back of a police truck.
“They have no mercy at all. Once they take your stock, you’ll never get it back,” says Saul Nhema, an informal vendor who has been selling vegetables for three months after losing his job as a construction worker.
On the day of this interview, the municipal police had already raided these informal vendors selling along Park Street in Harare’s central business district twice. As Global Press Journal reporters interviewed Nhema, they struck again. He grabbed his stock and fled in the middle of the interview.
The Harare City Council has for years waged such crackdowns on vendors, often destroying goods and deploying heavy police forces. Local government insists these crackdowns are necessary to enforce city bylaws, citing vending from illegal spots, littering and health concerns.
Yet the scale and intensity of recent operations, backed by expanding police presence and significant public spending, have raised questions. Critics argue that the government is wasting scarce resources targeting informal vendors all while it struggles to provide city residents with basic services, such as clean water.
In 2024, the council’s revenue stood at just US$3 million. But policing costs for these crackdowns exceeded US$24 million, eight times the council’s income.
In 2025, the council escalated its crackdown by creating a specialized police unit to target vendors, further deepening the financial strain with a slight budget increase — and pushing the total to around 12 times its income, which is projected to fall to just US$2 million.
As the council’s income dwindles, the central government shoulders much of the financial burden.
