Hundreds of vendors have poured their merchandise on the streets of Kampala and its outskirts to make a kill ahead of Christmas on Sunday. This comes barely a year since Kampala Capital City Authority– KCCA evicted street vendors in Kampala’s central business district and its outskirts as part of the Smart City campaign.
The campaign, which took part in all five city divisions saw hundreds of vendors being evicted, and their temporal structures demolished by the KCCA enforcement team backed by the Army and Police. However, as the festive season draws near, there is a big presence of vendors on the streets.
Our reporter toured the city on Saturday and saw vendors going about their business without any interruption from KCCA. The vendors storm the streets around 3 pm when the enforcement is a little relaxed and sell all kinds of commodities from fruits, vegetables, clothes, shoes, and electrical appliances among others.
The vendors operating along Namirembe road where they are selling mostly kids’ wear, women’s shoes and handbags, and phone accessories among others. On Ben Kiwanuka Street, the vendors are selling clothes for adults, children, and women’s handbags.
Their colleagues on Ssebaana Kizito and the old Nakivubo road and outside Ham building are vending mostly new clothes like T-shirts and shirts, shoes for girls and boys, and children wear. Our reporter found a high concentration of mothers alongside their children trying out the new shoes and clothes.
Street vendors are also found on Kampala road freely selling handkerchiefs, soakings, belts wallets, and fruits like Mangoes and sweet bananas. In Bwaise, and Kalerwe, the vendors have taken to the street to sell fruits and groceries making them impassable for pedestrians. Another group of vendors has staged under the Kampala Northern bypass flyover selling phone accessories and electric appliances
Ibrahim Lutalo, a street vendor operating along Nabugabo road, said that he has managed to make some money for the last three days he has been on the streets. He, however, complained that most of the customers are looking for cheap stuff because they don’t have money.
Martin Bakabani, a vendor at Mini Price, said that they are still facing disruptions from the KCCA enforcement officers.
Ibrahim Kasekende, a vendor at Ssebaana Kizito road said that now that KCCA has given them a chance to operate on the street he is hopeful that he is going to make some good money.
Grace Namubiru from Nansana who came for Christmas shopping, said that there are a lot of products but they are expensive.
Geoffrey Sseguya, a street vendor said that they want KCCA to give them at least one week during this festive season so that they can make some money since the economy is hard on them. Sseguya explains that they are currently working on the streets illegally, which exposes their merchandise to being confiscated by KCCA.
URN observed that vendors on different streets pay the KCCA Enforcement officers between Shillings 5000 to 10,000 depending on the size of their merchandise to allow them to operate for some time.
Richard Lubega, the Chairperson of the Federation of Kampala hawkers and Vendors Association, said that vendors are living on hand to mouth and most of them come back after seeing that there are no enforcement officers just to make ends meet during this Christmas with their families.
Henry Bukenya, the director of business at KCCA who never wanted to talk much about the issue when URN called him, said that it’s illegal for vendors to operate on the streets.
