No flea market is being created on Park Street

Ngadziore warns vendors not to pay the four space barons

Bridget Mabanda

The Small to Medium Enterprises Committee is advising informal traders not to part with their money to space barons as the City of Harare has no resolution to turn Park Street or any other parking bays into weekend flea markets.

This comes after the City of Harare SMEs Committee Chairperson, Denford Ngadziore heard that there are four politically connected space barons who are illegally collecting money from informal traders after misleading them that they will get trading space along Park Street in the Central Business District.

It is alleged that the four are collecting large amounts of money from desperate informal traders with the intention to illegally invade Park Street Road from Jameson Hotel down to Jason Moyo Avenue.

“The Committee is reliably informed that some desperate traders are currently contributing registration fees of US$20 to the barons who have a target of registering 3 000 traders and getting US$60 000 for doing nothing.

“Thereafter the barons intend to charge US$10 per trader and stand to make US$30 000 a day,” he said.

Ngadziore said if the invasion of parking bays has succeeded in other cities, it doesn’t mean it will succeed in Harare.

“As a City and as SMEs Committee, we will assure you that the plan will fail. The CBD parking bays will remain as such,” he added.

Space barons turned the space in question into a flea market during weekends and in the evenings over a period of more than two years. This was abruptly closed in 2022. The hundreds of vendors who found the site lucrative due to high foot traffic are hoping that the site will be turned into an official vending site and are therefore ripe for fleecing by space barons.

Meanwhile, Ngadziore has advised those who have already paid the registration fees to approach those individuals for refunds while council has started the process of launching a formal report to the Zimbabwe Republic Police.