Street vendors wander on crowded streets of Kabul

KABUL (SW): Kabul streets have been hit by the heavy traffic congestions for months, so you have to add another hour to cover half an hour trip. Although about a month ago, Kabul’s traffic management responsibility was transferred from the Interior Ministry to the Municipality, but the traffic congestion problem is still unresolved and has been increasing day by day.

One of the main reasons for traffic congestion pointed out by the residents is the presence of “street vendors” on the sidewalks and even on the streets.

In order to know how much this reason justifies the crowds of the capital’s streets, I went out on the streets to prepare a report. In order to know more, I did not have to travel further from my office, because, these days, tens of cars and motorcycles line up on the streets due to traffic congestions and hardly move forward.

Apparently, I was very timely in reporting this issue, as according to the “street vendors”, the Kabul municipality has taken action to sweep them off the streets.

Are the “street vendors” happy with the municipality’s action?  To find out, I went to the city center of Kabul, Deh Afghanan area. I saw a middle age man who was selling clothes. He was shouting loud to draw the attention of customers while he saw me approaching and thought I am from the Municipality. He seemed uncomfortable until I asked him my question. His name is Ghulam Nabi. He said, no one cares about his problems.  He added that poverty pressures him further every day; however, despite all the problems he has been trying to make a living in this way to bring food to his children.

He asserted that if the government has provided him a job opportunity in a factory or somewhere; he would have never been willing to sell clothes on the streets on such a cold day. He is the only provider for a ten-member family. According to him, he has to bear insults of the employees of the municipality on daily basis only to feed his family.

His words had such influence on me that until I talked to Parviz, another “street vendor” in Nadir Pashton Street, I was thinking about his problems. Parviz is a 30 years old man, selling electronics. He said that the municipality employees have been creating troubles for them daily. He added that if the municipality assigns him another place for his business he would be happy to transfer his equipment and start his business there if he could earn as much as he has been making in his current place.

The weather was cold and Parviz invited me to sit closer to the fire he lit up. He stated that he has seven children and live with them in a rented house. He said he has been thinking if his business did not run in the area that the municipality will assign to them, what should he do? Parviz added that his income is very minimal even in the current location that he has been doing business and it will be a great risk to transfer to a new place, not knowing what the future will have for him. He claimed that the municipality employees have often shed their equipment on the street and have not had a proper approach to them.

Officials at the Kabul municipality said that the reason for removing the “street vendors” from the streets is to avoid the traffic overcrowding and said that they have assigned a specific place for the “street vendors” to do their businesses.

I went to the Kabul municipality to know more about their plan for the removal of “street vendors”. Abdul Jalil Sultani, the spokesperson for the Kabul municipality said that the municipality has developed a comprehensive plan to remove the “street vendors” from the streets and place them in a specific area in order to solve the traffic congestions problem.

Mr. Sultani said that the Kabul municipality has identified a better place for these sellers so that their businesses are not hurt. According to him, all “street vendors” in Kabul will be registered in their database. So far, at least 300 vendors have been registered and this process is continuing to register further “street vendors” in the database.    

The Kabul municipality spokesperson said that next week they will open the places that are allocated for the “street vendors”.  Sultani said that these places will be far better than the edges of streets and there would be no problems for the “street vendors” to do their businesses.

Froshgah, Nadir Pashton Road, Pol-e Bagh Umumi, Mirwais Maidan, Pamir Cinema and Kotta Sanghi are among the areas where the municipality has been removing the “street vendors” and “road-side sellers” from. However, social affairs experts believe that removing “street vendors” and “road-side sellers” could reduce the roadblocks and eliminate traffic congestion but might create dozens of other problems for the residents, such as reduction in their daily income which could force them to stop their business. They said in order to solve this problem in general, sub-roads must be constructed, and otherwise, the government should build special stores for them to start their businesses there.

Although in the past few years, the municipality has been trying to remove the “street vendors”, but every day the number of “street vendors” and “road-side sellers” have been increasing.

ENDS