The National Parliamentary Committee on Trade, Industry, and Cooperatives of the National Assembly proposed a bill that seeks to legally recognize, regulate, and protect street vendors from harassment, as well as ensure a conducive environment to sell their wares.
According to the Vice-Chair of the Committee, Maryanne Keitany, the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood) Bill, 2023, aims to define how street vending should be recognized, protected, and regulated in the country and set minimum vendor standards.
Speaking, Tuesday, in Kakamega town during a Public Participation on the Bill, the Vice-Chair said the essence of the problem that the Bill intends to tackle is the recurrent harassment of street vendors by law enforcement officers, the random disposal of items and the loss of livelihoods without any legal redress.
“Many of us in this Hall are familiar with, where traders, who have invested their savings in stock, sometimes sell-off their land to raise capital, and wake-up to find their goods confiscated and their businesses ruined in individual enforcement proceedings. In response to the Constitution, which gives every Kenyan a right to earn a dignified living, the Bill would put a practical legal basis on that right,” she added.
The Bill proposes a framework of vending zones within Part III, with classification of three types of zones; restriction-free vending zones, restricted vending zones, and no-vending zones.
The members of the County Executive Committees-In-Charge of trade would be required to survey all the existing street vendors, designate the vending zones using a County Vending Plan, and post the designations to the Kenya Gazette.
The Committee clarified that places such as town and centres with high pedestrian flow would tend to be classified as restriction-free zones, whereas sensitive areas including State Lodge or hospital entrances, would be identified as no-vending zones.
The Bill affirms that no zone shall be considered a no-vending zone until the County survey has been completed, and the vending plan prepared.
The provisions of the Bill on registration and licensing drew a lot of debate in the forum.
Part IV makes street vendors register with the respective county governments and obtain a vending license, which would classify the vendor as a stationary vendor or a mobile vendor.
The Committee emphasized that the Bill will give some physical and online delivery of license applications, which was welcomed positively by participants who noted that digital accessibility, will lessen the bureaucracy among vendors in rural and peri-urban centres.
A vending license will include the name of the vendor, the type of license, the location where the vendor sells goods or services, contact details, type of goods or services, as well as, where applicable, information on disability registration.
The license would be renewable on an annual basis, and vendors would be expected to apply to renew the license at least thirty days before expiry.
Participants welcomed the quiet possession provision that holds that the authorized officers are only allowed to seize goods under specified circumstances and must provide a receipt informing the owner of the specific goods that have been confiscated, their approximate value, the reasons why they were confiscated, and the place and date within which they may be recovered.
They said this put to a stop situations where goods that are confiscated are never documented.
Further, under the Act, on protection against harassment, the Bill under Section 26 specifically prohibits the conduct of officers of national or county governments. Acting without a legitimate purpose will make one liable to conviction of such acts and face a jail term not exceeding a year and a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand shillings.
A participant, Joseph Joshua, from Ikolomani asked the Committee to give special consideration to People Living With Disabilities (PLWD) and students by reducing the licensing fees.
“The definition of terms such as ‘public interest’ and ‘national security’ in Section 7 to allow the county executive committee members to place conditions or restrictions on selling in restricted areas was too broadly worded and could be abused to justify arbitrary eviction of vendors,” he added.
Joseph Joshua contended that the imposition of a fine of ten thousand shillings daily on the vendors who failed to vacate a designated place after the expiry of a notice period was disproportionate to the daily income of many vendors.
He suggested a progressive system of penalties starting with warnings and with lower penalties depending on the daily turnover of each vendor.
A youth, representing the Chieroi Market, David Ekombe, separately raised issues of whether vendors could register in more than one county and whether the bill intended to limit the number of hawkers working on a particular street.
Participants were told that the intent of the bill is multi-county licensing, which means that vendors conducting business in more than one county may receive licenses in each county by paying the required fees, since counties primarily seek license fees to fund service delivery.
Another participant, Esther Kavaya, however, raised concern over poor sanitation and drainage systems within many major towns in the area and asked the county government to improve on the same.
The Committee’s sessions were presided over by Vice-Chair of the committee, Maryanne Keitany (MP Aldai), and members Anthony Oluoch (MP Mathare) and Wario Adhe Guyo (MP North Horr), who promised to incorporate views gathered.
By Godfrey Wang’anya
