The opposition United Party for National Development says the Patriotic Front government is applying double standards by chasing Livingstone vendors off the street while those in Lusaka are allowed to operate with impunity.
UPND chairperson for Tourism Ephraim Belemu has said tourism minister Sylvia Masebo was being insincere by claiming that the government was cleaning the city.
“What is it going to benefit the country by chasing vendors off the streets of Livingstone for a month because of the UNWTO conference and then after that we will be back to the same garbage?” Belemu asked.
“It is like sweeping the house only because there are visitors coming. What about these in Lusaka who have been given a free hand to operate without any order? What about those that created an illegal market called Donchi Kubeba? So on one hand it is okay to have vendors running the entire city of Lusaka while in Livingstone there is a different standard,” he said.
“Don’t you remember a high ranking official saying that vendors were free to operate because government had not yet created jobs?”
Vice president Guy Scott during the last session of parliament said the PF government had allowed the vendors to operate freely because they had not been given jobs.
Tourism minister Sylvia Masebo has ordered vendors off the streets of Livingstone for the duration of the UNWTO Conference.
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