Unveiling the retail mafia: Zim’s formal retailers...

Unveiling the retail mafia: Zim’s formal retailers blamed for informal market growth

**Informal traders sell groceries right at the entrance of a large retail chain**

Patience Muchemwa

The proliferation of informal retailers in the country is largely caused by the retailers, the Progressive Retail and Wholesale Workers Union of Zimbabwe has said.

This follows reports by the wholesale and retail trade sector that they had been hard-hit by the thriving informal sector, where smuggled goods, including basic commodities, are being sold at relatively cheaper prices, resulting in job losses, company closures and lack of profitability among other things.

PRWWUZ president, Collins Kasiya, told Zim Now that if retailers are being challenged by street vendors, why are they letting them sell in front of their shops.

He said the assumption is that the formal retail shops employ vendors to sell goods on their behalf on commission so that they make sure they collected every dollar in the streets.

“They are the ones with the goods which are being sold by the vendors to make sure they collected every dollar from ordinary citizen.”

He further said that retailers are aiming to weaken government policies.

“Retailers want to force the government to chase the vendors away from the streets so, that if these people are chased from the streets, they revolt against their government.”

Kasiya believed that the retailers want the government to remove tax and duty so that they can enjoy 100 percent profit from their sells.

“They want to push for tax exemption yet the citizens of Zimbabwe are also paying tax, for every dollar transaction, there is 5 percent value added tax.

“The agenda there is not to applaud the business community. The agenda there is to say ‘exempt or let us push this government’ is not good because it is not supporting the business community that is playing a pivotal role to their economy.”

Zimbabwe Statistics Agency has reported 74 140 formal jobs lost between July and September this year, 12.8 % (almost 9 500) are in the wholesale and retail trade sector.

Kasiya said the formal retailers are the ones who are pushing for formal job losses in the country.

“In order for OK to employ twenty people, they take only ten for the tills and rest are send to the informal market and they got paid on commission, so they are running away from formalising the market because they calculated the workers’ benefits on the formal side.”