Every morning, Christopher Motani walks to Lilongwe City Centre knowing his livelihood could vanish in a wink.
Like hundreds of informal traders across the capital city, the Area 36 resident sells handy goods along the streets—a daily gamble between hand-to-mouth survival and losing everything to Lilongwe City Council law en-forcers out to keep the city clean, orderly and secure.
“I take the risk because I have mouths to feed,” he says.
City authorities say confiscating goods from street vendors is necessary to make laws work and streets safe.
Street vendors, however, describe the sudden swoops as punitive and economically devastating.
“When the enforcement teams grab your items, you can lose the entire capital in a second. This sinks vulnerable households into debt,” Motani states.
He sells fritters sourced from bakeries on credit.
The business earns him just enough to cover transport, food and basic needs for his family.
Without a shop, the unlicensed vendor plies near traffic lights, cashing in on pedestrians and motorists caught in the slowdown.
The fragile balancing act crushed last month when city patrolpersons and police confiscated his stock and detained him.
“They only left me with a debt I’m struggling to rebuild,” Motani says.
The patrol team bundled the seized foodstuffs into sacks without any records or disclosures to sign.
Just like that, they wiped out his capital.
The business collapsed as follow-ups to recover his goods only yielded detention without trial and a K20 000 fine for illegal street vending.
“I didn’t have the money. So, I borrowed from friends and relatives to buy my freedom, but it wasn’t enough to save my business. The debt kept growing,” he says.
This highlights the plight of street vendors as councils seemingly invest more in crackdowns than expanding markets to match rapid population growth amid surging urbanisation.
Buyers fuel illegal vending as many prefer buying from roadside sellers to those clustered in designated markets.
Mavuto Jumbe, who sells second-hand shoes by the roadside in Lilongwe, lost his entire stock and slumped to selling sweets following the dreaded encounter with city police.
The grabs continued.
“Three times, they have taken my candies,” he said. “Each confiscation makes me poorer and I’ve to borrow to restart, but city authorities don’t account for my goods. Sometimes, I see similar goods on sale the next day. I can’t prove that it’s mine, but it hurts.”
Colonial relic
There are similar running battles in the bustling streets of Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial hub.
Selling everything from fruits to second-hand clothes, these traders, mostly women, are not just vendors but breadwinners, caregivers and entrepreneurs.
Yet, despite their vital role, they face daily harassment, abuse and eco-nomic hardship at the hands of those meant to protect them.
The country’s city by-laws prohibit street vending and restrict in-formal trading to designated marketplaces, which are usually overcrowd-ed, underdeveloped and unaffordable for the average informal trader under siege.
Informal traders form the backbone of the local economy, with over 80 percent of the population relying on the sector.
Southern Africa Litigation Centre social justice researcher Thabo Buthelezi attributes the running battles to colonial-era vagrancy laws that continue to influence the policing of informal traders and laws that criminalise poverty.
He writes: “Those who cannot afford to be at designated marketplaces risk being arrested, paying fines and having their goods confiscated, with no hope of getting their items back.
“The path forward must be holistic, combining legal education, economic support, infrastructure development, and systemic reform. Only then can Malawi’s informal traders move from surviving to thriving.”
Last resort?
When asked about the clampdown on informal traders, Lilongwe City Council chief executive officer McLeod Kadammanja said “confiscation is a last resort” not to punish vendors, but to ensure order and safety.
“Trading in undesignated areas exposes vendors to losses and contributes to congestion, theft and disorder,” he says. “Our aim is to work with vendors and guide them to proper market spaces where their businesses are safer and the city remains clean.”
He argues that seized goods are not returned to deter repeat violations and would-be offenders.
“We repeatedly advise vendors to follow regulations, so those who ignore the rules must understand that the law will still take its course.”
