Since April, local authorities in Zimbabwe’s major cities have demolished thousands of illegally built structures that vendors like Kahari use to sell their wares, in what authorities have said is an effort to legitimise informal trade in the city.

Vendors and informal workers’ groups in Zimbabwe say that city officials, with the support of the national government, are exploiting the lockdown to destroy makeshift shops and market stalls while their owners are observing stay-at-home orders.

Having already gone without income since the southern African nation went into lockdown on March 30, many vendors lost essential stock and prized possessions when their stalls were destroyed, Wadzai said.

Simon Masanga, the permanent secretary for social welfare, said in May the government began distributing 180 Zimbabwean dollars ($7.20) per month to more than 2,000 people who had been affected by the lockdown and the clampdown on vendors.

If the government wants to help vendors recover from both the impacts of the pandemic and the loss of their stalls, it should ease the informal trading sector out of lockdown and put a rush on aid payments, Wadzai said.