When poverty becomes a license for chaos, everyone loses

Windhoek’s street-vending crisis demands compassion, but compassion cannot mean abandoning the rules

There is something deeply uncomfortable about the stories emerging from Windhoek’s streets.

On one side are ordinary Namibians trying to survive. They sell fruit, vegetables, cooked food, clothing, household goods and countless other items because the formal economy has not provided them with sufficient opportunities.

For many, vending is not a lifestyle choice. It is the difference between putting food on the table and going hungry.

On the other side is a city struggling to maintain order as informal trading increasingly spills onto sidewalks, road reserves, intersections, business entrances and other spaces never intended to become informal markets.

And somewhere in between is a growing political and emotional confrontation in which the genuine desperation of struggling Namibians risks becoming ammunition in a much bigger fight.

That is where we should draw the line.

The plight of the poor must never be exploited at the expense of the poor.

The emotional message circulating around the current vendor controversy tells the story of “Meme Maria Thomas”, a vendor described as carrying an invisible burden, crying in silence, struggling to pay rent, skipping meals so her children can eat and counting every cent.

It is a powerful human story.

But precisely because it is powerful, we must be careful about what we do with it.

Maria’s hardship deserves compassion. It does not automatically make every location suitable for trading. Her struggle does not make road reserves safe.

Her children’s hunger does not eliminate the need for sanitation, pedestrian access, traffic safety, waste management or fire regulations.

Nor should the desperation of vendors become a political weapon through which confrontation with the City of Windhoek is intensified by emotive statements suggesting that every enforcement action is heartless or that every City Police officer is somehow an enemy of the poor.

That is neither fair nor productive.

The municipality itself has acknowledged that informal traders are part of the urban economy and has established markets and temporary trading sites.

According to the municipality, Windhoek has 18 open markets and has also made temporary sites available to regulate trading while maintaining hygiene and safety standards.

It’s regulations are not, therefore, saying: do not trade.

They are essentially saying: trade, but trade within an agreed framework.

That distinction matters.

The current regulations provide for designated trading areas and prohibit trading in locations where vendors obstruct traffic, pedestrians, building entrances, fire hydrants and other public facilities, among other restrictions.

These are not unreasonable principles.

Indeed, they are the fundamentals of running a city.

The uncomfortable question is therefore not whether Windhoek should have street vendors.

It should.

The question is what kind of street-vending culture Windhoek wants.

Because properly managed, street vending can actually make a city more interesting, more vibrant and more economically inclusive.

Walking through many major cities around the world and informal or semi-formal street commerce is part of the urban character.

Food stalls, markets, crafts, clothing, fresh produce and small businesses can create activity and economic opportunity.

There is nothing inherently unattractive about people making an honest living on the streets.

What becomes unattractive is disorder.

A fruit seller with a clean, properly designed stall in an approved location is one thing.

A cluster of makeshift structures spilling into a road, blocking pedestrians, creating mountains of refuse and competing for space with moving vehicles is something else entirely.

The difference is management.

Windhoek should be capable of achieving the first without allowing the second.

And this is where both sides of the current dispute need to take responsibility.

The City of Windhoek cannot simply conduct periodic enforcement operations and expect the problem to disappear.

If people are repeatedly removed from one location only to reappear somewhere else, the underlying economic problem remains.

The City needs a more systematic approach: identify appropriate trading corridors and markets, provide basic infrastructure, issue transparent permits, establish clear operating hours, enforce hygiene standards and create an orderly system through which people can graduate from informal trading into more formal enterprises.

But vendors and their representatives also have responsibilities.

A permit cannot mean “permission to trade anywhere”.

A designated area cannot become optional.

A protest cannot become an excuse for intimidation.

And a legitimate petition cannot be accompanied by rhetoric that encourages confrontation with municipal officials simply because enforcement is taking place.

The recent public messaging around the dispute illustrates how quickly a legitimate socioeconomic issue can become combustible.

Statements referring to “heartless city police”, allegations of instructions from senior officials and claims that petitions are being withheld may be serious if substantiated.

But allegations must be handled through evidence, proper complaints mechanisms and public accountability, not through the mobilisation of anger based on unverified assertions.

There is nothing wrong with vendors demanding answers.

There is everything wrong with creating an environment in which people believe that because they are poor, the law should not apply to them.

That would ultimately hurt the poor themselves.

The wealthy can often absorb disorder. They can drive to shopping centres, use private parking, shop online and live behind walls.

The ordinary pedestrian cannot.

The taxi passenger cannot.

The elderly person trying to walk along a blocked pavement cannot.

The small formal business paying rent, rates, taxes and salaries cannot.

And neither can the vendor who has invested his or her limited money into stock and equipment and now finds that an uncontrolled vending environment has made the entire sector vulnerable to arbitrary enforcement.

This is why Windhoek needs to stop treating the issue as a simplistic battle between the City and the vendors.

It is not.

It is a question about what kind of city we want to build.

A modern African capital should have space for entrepreneurship at every level.

It should have corporate offices, shopping centres, formal retailers, restaurants, markets, informal traders, artisans, food vendors and small entrepreneurs.

But all of these must operate within a system.

The answer cannot be that because unemployment and poverty are real, anything goes.

Nor can the answer be that because regulations exist, enforcement alone will solve the problem.

Both positions are inadequate.

The council must enforce the law, but enforce it consistently, humanely and transparently.

Vendors must comply with the law, but they must also be given realistic opportunities to operate legally.

And political leaders must resist the temptation to turn every enforcement operation into an opportunity for populist mobilisation.

This is particularly important because the people standing behind the slogans are real people.

They are mothers.

They are fathers.

They are young people.

They are grandparents.

They are unemployed graduates.

They are people who have discovered that selling tomatoes, kapana, clothes or other goods may be the only immediate economic opportunity available to them.

Their dignity must be protected.

But dignity also means treating them as responsible economic citizens, not as helpless victims who can only be defended through confrontation.

There is another uncomfortable truth.

Windhoek is not the only city dealing with informal commerce.

Cities considerably larger and more densely populated than Windhoek have demonstrated that street commerce and urban order do not have to be mutually exclusive.

The lesson is not that Windhoek should copy another city.

The lesson is that management matters.

A vendor market can become a tourist attraction.

A properly organised food street can become part of a city’s identity.

A craft market can create jobs.

A fresh-produce market can connect rural producers with urban consumers.

A well-designed informal trading district can become part of Windhoek’s social and economic fabric.

Imagine, instead of constantly chasing vendors from one street to another, Windhoek deliberately creating attractive, clean, well-lit and properly serviced trading precincts.

Imagine branded stalls.

Uniform waste bins.

Designated loading areas.

Ablution facilities.

Water.

Electricity where necessary.

Digital permits.

Clear operating hours.

Regular inspections.

Reasonable fees.

And, importantly, enforcement that is predictable rather than episodic.

That could transform the conversation completely.

Instead of asking how to remove vendors from Windhoek, we could be asking how to make Windhoek’s informal economy one of the city’s attractions.

But that requires leadership.

It requires the City to stop reacting to the crisis only when it becomes politically embarrassing.

It requires vendors to understand that rights come with responsibilities.

It requires political leaders and activists to resist exploiting hardship for political theatre.

And it requires all of us to recognise thatcompassion and law are not opposites.

We can have both.

We should have both.

The woman crying because she cannot feed her children deserves our sympathy.

But she also deserves a city where she can earn her living safely, legally and with dignity.

The pedestrian deserves a pavement.

The motorist deserves a safe road.

The shopkeeper deserves access to his business.

The vendor deserves a place to trade.

And the City of Windhoek deserves a system that makes all of these things possible at the same time.

That is the real challenge.

Not whether we choose the vendor or the City.

But whether we are capable of building a city in which the vendor, the pedestrian, the formal business and the municipality can all coexist without one destroying the rights of the other.

Windhoek does not need more shouting.

It needs better management.

It does not need more emotional mobilisation.

It needs practical solutions.

And above all, it needs to ensure that the legitimate struggle of Namibia’s poor is never turned into an excuse for disorder, or into a political instrument that ultimately leaves those same struggling people with fewer opportunities, greater conflict and nowhere orderly to trade.