Buyers from street vendors to face punitive action in Kigali

The City of Kigali is moving to enforce City Council bylaw provision which allows authorities to penalize people buying goods from street vendors in an effort to stamp out street vending.

Authorities are invoking the City Council bylaw of May, 2015 on dealing with illegal businesses and management of free markets.

It provides for a fine of 12 U.S. dollars for offenders, vendor and buyer.

The enforcement will come into force after one week following the Wednesday city announcement, according to authorities.

City authorities contend that street vending compromises business development, hygiene and security as well as the country's economic growth.

Addressing journalists in Kigali on Wednesday, Patricia Muhongerwa, the City vice mayor for social affairs called on street vendors to work under cooperatives to grow their businesses and be able to pay taxes to benefit the country's economy.

She noted that vendors deprive legitimate businesses customers yet they don't pay taxes.

"We hope that vendors will be discouraged from such businesses when they fail to get buyers," she said.

"We are now targeting both vendor and buyer with hope that this strategy will be more effective compared to the previous approach where we only focused on vendors,"

City authorities argue that the fight against street vending has been futile for the last three years even after moving some 6,000 vendors to organized markets.

Vendors normally claim that there are no customers in the markets.

Under the bylaw offenders' goods will be confiscated after paying fine. Endit