Ondangwa vendors allege victimisation

While the Ondangwa Town Council is accusing a group of street vendors of operating illegally, they are accusing the local authority of continually victimising them in tandem with a private security company. The hawkers allege that employees of Shilimela Security Services - contracted by the town council to remove hawkers from the streets following a court order - are conducting a campaign of terror against them, including physical aggression and “daylight robbery”. The hawkers have produced a paper documenting some of their alleged losses at the hands of the security guards. The list contains 21 names of vendors who allegedly lost items valued at N$28 170. Confiscated items include recharge vouchers, cigarettes, cash, handbags, necklaces, watches, belts, vegetables and a variety of edible items. They allege that those found selling at a place other than the open market are rounded up, assaulted and handed over to the police for incarceration, and whatever they were selling disappears without a trace. “Confiscated items are never recovered. The guards claim they hand everything to the town council, but council officials reject this. The security guards have transformed the town council contract into a self-enrichment scheme,” the vendors claimed. They said they have on several occasions observed security guards sitting under a huge fig tree eating all the cooked food they confiscate. “We are tired of being victimised. We are being arrested, beaten and sprayed with teargas by Shilimela Security guards, but when we approach the police they side with the guards. We are tired, we are tired, we are tired,” the vendors wrote in a statement. “We are ordinary residents trying to make a living and, most importantly, we are the very people who vote Swapo. Yet no one from the Swapo Party government is prepared to come and listen to our cry for help. Is that what we get for our votes?” The vendors said they are not against the decision to remove vendors from the streets. They are merely demanding to be allocated a place where they can conduct their business without being harassed. Both the town council and Shilimela Security Services dismissed the vendors’ claims. The town council is adamant that all vendors have to operate from the various open markets and that those found operating illegally will be dealt with. Banda Shilimela, the managing director of Shilimela Security Services, said earlier that his employees are operating within the law and dismissed the allegations levelled against them as unfounded. “There is a court order ordering all vendors to conduct their business at designated open markets only. Shilimela Security Services was contracted to implement the court order since the Ondangwa Town Council does not have its own security personnel,” he said.