MIDLANDS Provincial Affairs minister Owen Ncube has set the
dreaded Joint Operations Command (JOC) units on vendors to forcefully move them
from the Gweru central business district (CBD).
JOC is a military establishment accused of spearheading
most post-independence State-sponsored atrocities and is made up of military,
police, prison services and intelligence.
In an interview soon after meeting Health minister David
Parirenyatwa on his second visit to the city on Friday in the wake of the
typhoid outbreak, Ncube said the influx of vendors in the city centre was the
major cause of the deadly disease.
“I gave vendors in town a 48-hour ultimatum to vacate the
CBD until the typhoid outbreak situation has improved. I have, therefore, told
the provincial JOC committee to intervene and move away vendors who will not
have obeyed my ultimatum,” he said .
The development is yet another case of the heavy-handedness
in which President-elect Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration has showcased in
dealing with civilian matters.
Previous efforts to evict the vendors from the CBD have
turned violent, as some of them strongly resisted being moved away from their
stalls.
Gweru town clerk Elizabeth Gwatipedza revealed that the
salmonela virus that causes the disease had been detected in borehole water
from Mkoba 15 suburb.
Gweru Vendors’ Association chairperson Lovemore Reketai
told Southern Eye that they felt the minister was just using the typhoid
outbreak as a scapegoat to politically persecute them following the crashing
defeat of Zanu PF in the city during the July 30 elections.
“From what we gather, it is all about politics. Why are we
now being chased away after the elections? The typhoid reason is a hoax,”
Reketai said.
He said vendors needed to feed their families and removing
them from their sources of livelihoods without creating alternative means for
them was inhuman.
“Where do they want the vendors to raise money for their
upkeep? It was going to be better had the minister given them an alternative
place to sell their wares for a living,” he said. Newsday
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