BULAWAYO - The City Council will soon be swooping on newspaper and air time vendors with a levy of US$15 a month designed to regularise their operations and decongest pavements.
Media industry players have dismissed the plans by the local authority as ill-advised and a duplication of taxes.
According to the latest council minutes, a local authority interdepartmental committee that met in June this year recommended that newspaper vendors be levied US$15 for those selling within the Central Business District (CBD).
The municipality said other remaining sites outside the CBD would be allocated administratively.
Chamber Secretary, Sikhangele Zhou, said the levy was in tandem with the citys policy that everyone who is trading must pay.
Just like all vendors, everyone must pay something when they are trading somewhere. They have to pay for a vending licence, she said. Zhou said the local authority would designate newspaper vending sites and charge for those sites.
The Zimpapers Bulawayo Branch Assistant Circulation Manager, Martin Sibanda, said, although the company was paying a levy to the Plumtree Council, the money proposed by the BCC was too high.
The BCC hasnt approached us. We have 168 vendors and, at that rate, that will be a lot of money, he said.
At US$15 a month, the Bulawayo branch will be paying US$2 520 to the local authority for vendors both in the city centre and outside.
Zhou said the modalities of implementation of the council resolution were now an engineering department task.
The Group CEO of Alpha Media, Raphael Khumalo, said the planned move by the BCC was misguided.
The first thing is that its a misguided move, completely misguided; they think money grows on trees. Those vendors are paid on commission, he said.
The municipality should concentrate on issues like getting the streets clean and creating an environment for business to make money. Then they can charge the rates. Its completely ill advised, he said.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) national chairman, Loughty Dube, said the proposed fees were unrealistic.
By registering, newspapers already pay taxes and the charging for disposable goods is a duplication of taxes, he said. It will compromise on the newspapers as we will have an effect on the remuneration of journalists and everyone employed in newspapers.
According to the minutes, about 19 vending sites for newspapers and periodicals were designated some time in the late 1990s. It was proposed that the vendors be regularised so that they were billed immediately and the sites tendered out thereafter.
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