Ten teams including environment and health inspectors, municipal police, the Zimbabwe Republic Police and town planners were deployed in the operation, which also targeted shop operators who did not satisfy health and environmental standards.
The leader of the operation, Director of Health Department Services Stanely Mungofa, was confident that the campaign would restore sanity in the central business district.
“From our point of view, there is now sanity in the city centre,” he said. By last week they had visited 3,871 shops in the CBD, of which 1,237 were not licensed.
“In three weeks we received 175 spot license registrations. We will shortly spread to other areas,” he said, but declined to say how much money had been raised.
Mungofa said 60—80 percent of illegal and unregistered shop operators were found in residential areas outside the CBD, where most unauthorized commercial dealings were taking place.
The operation would boost council’s revenue collection at a time it was losing about 60 percent in income through illegal dealing every year.
“We have been losing about $9 million potential revenue to unlicensed and illegal shop operators,” Mungofa said.
Post published in: News