The City of Kigali will in the New Year start enforcing a resolution passed in July stipulating fines for people caught buying from hawkers, Rwanda Today has learnt.

This festive season has in particular seen the City security agents heavily deployed at all the popular vending sites in an intensified crack down on sale and purchase of goods in areas not designated as markets.

However, lack of a clear implementation mechanism with regard to the City Council directive on fines for both the street vendors and their buyers made its enforcement difficult. Kigali City officials have now set January 2017 to start enforcing the fines in the four-month old decree published in the official gazette.

According to its provision, people illegally selling goods on the streets and their buyers could face up to Rwf10,000 in fines.

READ: Kigali residents face arrest for buying from hawkers

“We have had to first train the security staff like the District Administration Security Service Organ (Dasso) who will help in the enforcement, and decide channels through which the fines will be collected. So, we took enough time to prepare while at the same time conducting prior awareness campaign so that when we embark on proper implementation no resident will claim he or she is caught unaware,” said Monique Mukaruliza, Mayor of Kigali City.

Unlike for buyers, a number of hawkers have this festive days faced brief arrests during numerous operations jointly carried out by the city patrol teams, officers of the Dasso and the Police.

Kigali City Mayor said it has now been agreed that those arrested will be compelled to deposit the fines at Sectors’ bank accounts with immediate effect.

The past few months have seen hawkers called to register and dispatched to 12 newly-created markets across Kigali. Here, they get a year’s tax exemption (Rwf84 000), paid Rwf60,000 rent as well as the fees related to maintaining hygiene and security for the whole year.

It is estimated that over 6,000 vendors initially got stands in these markets while another 1,000 vendors still claim to have missed out on the allocation of stands.

The latter make the majority of those still vending products namely fruits, vegetables alongside clothes and shoes on Kigali’s busier streets. Besides, there are vendors who moved to the free markets but still return to the streets on evenings citing shortage of clientele.

Meanwhile, a field visit by this newspaper pointed to a situation where the street vending business in Kigali continues to attract a big number of youth and adults from the outskirts and the neighbouring districts.

On their side, Kigali City officials decried lack of exact statistics of the incoming vendors to be able to engage their respective districts on the matter.

The latest statistics suggested that there are over 8,000 street vendors across the three urban districts of Nyarugenge, Gasabo and Kicukiro.