Why street food vendors must be empowered, not brutalised

Dar es Salaam. Grace Nshenywa has found treasure in food vending at Tabata Relini, along Mandela Expressway, however, each time she thinks of her future as a vendor, she is bound to keep praying.

As she speaks, Grace recalls the ups and downs of raising her small business and keeps mentioning some city auxiliary police, “watu wa site” Kiswahili for City Askari.

She tells The Citizen how she had been repeatedly evicted from place to place in the past, as she sought a perfect place for selling her groundnuts, blaming “watu wa city” for keeping her on her toes. It turns out that she was referring to city authorities.

“If they come one day and tell me that I can’t sell food in this area anymore, I don’t know what I will do…” says Grace, the 30 year old resident of Mabibo in Dar es Salaam.

After a storm, comes a calm

“Since the day President Magufuli allowed us to vend freely on streets, I have been at peace, I pray no one comes to change how we [street food vendors] operate,’’ says Grace.

Albeit with uncertainty, she enjoys selling groundnuts, with a customer turnover of 30 to 50 people per day. On a good day, she earns from Sh5000 to Sh10, 000. She sells a handful of groundnuts at Sh200 or two handfuls at Sh400.

When asked why she shouldn’t formalise her business and trade without fears of being evicted, Grace responds by asking a series of questions.

“How do I do that?” “I wish I could. But then, my business is so small, I think I need to have a big business for me to get a license. That would also take me so long. Why do I have to go that far?”

At Tabata Relini, where Grace sells groundnuts, several other women, known as Mama Lishe, have established a base for their sales. But street food selling characterises the city.

Moving on the streets of Dar es Salaam, one will notice the number of street food vendors in their large numbers. It does not matter what time it is; day or night, somewhere on the streets there is a plate of fried cassava being served with salad.

This is a popular side dish made from a combination of tomatoes, onions, salt and lemon. Or you will find a glass of fruit salad made from the tropical fruits the city avails to quench thirst and energise the passers-by.

Ms Jamila Hamad, at Tabata Relini, cooks food (mostly rice with meat sauce and beans) around the area.

Her customers are mostly the motorcyclists (bodaboda) who also have an informal parking lot there, but also the truck drivers whose transport companies have established a parking area.

“I have been selling food as Mamalishe for some two years now. It’s the bodaboda drivers and truck drivers whom I sell to. Where I find them, I establish a small kitchen. That’s how I survived,’’ says Jamila.

The fears caused by the uncertainty—as expressed by Grace—are similarly told by Jamila. Yet, such a challenged group of people is not isolated.

Food experts say Mama Lishe and other food vendors on streets in Tanzania, find it cumbersome to cope with procedures set to do formal business, thus they don’t last in the business.

However, an officer from Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), Mr Julius Mjenga, believes that street food vendors can be formalised into business only if they strive to improve their business practices and develop their targets.

“As an expert in tax and business, what I see is that street food vendors need to be educated and empowered on how they can do business. Their fears and failure to meet expectations can be addressed too,’’ he said.

Mr Mjenga was speaking during symposium held in Dar es Salaam recently, dubbed: Advancing Healthy Street Food Incentives” to boost the safety and nutritional balance of street food in Tanzania.

In many parts of the world, particularly in the developing countries, street food vending makes an important contribution to employment, household revenue and food security.

There is growing recognition that street food vending plays an important socio-economic role in terms of employment potential, providing special income particularly for women and provision of food at affordable costs to mainly the lower income groups in the cities.

But health and food experts have raised concerns, they say that while street foods are an important source of ready-to-eat nutrition and provides low cost meal for the urban poor population, the health risks possessed by such foods may outweigh their benefits.

Researchers on environmental health have found that such food products have been associated with foodborne diseases leading to several health problems to consumers.

A study, titled ‘Survey of physicochemical characteristics and microbial contamination in selected food locally vended in Morogoro Municipality’, found that the physicochemical characteristics of food vended in Morogoro Municipality were of poor quality.

The food had high bacterial contamination, the study said.

Published in BMC Research Notes in 2015, it said that raw fruit juice was stored in dirty containers and sold under an unhygienic environment.

Yet another study, titled, the ‘Assessment of physicochemical characteristics and hygienic practices along the value chain of raw fruit juice vended in Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania’ published in Tanzania Journal of Health Research in 2014 came up with similar findings.

The study concluded that the general hygiene of vendors, premises and handling practices with regards to juice preparation, extraction methods and washing of utensils in Dar es Salaam are very poor.

Why health matters

World Health Organisation’s (WHO) said in its 2015 report that there was an estimated 582 million cases of 22 different foodborne enteric diseases and 351,000 associated deaths with the African region recording the highest burden for the diseases.

What else must be addressed?

The informal sector covers people with the coping behaviour of individuals during economic downturn and those affected by the rising unemployment.

But also, the informal sector can be a product of rational behaviour of innovative entrepreneurs that seek to escape government regulations and registration of business enterprises. But, above all, the role of the informal sector is complex and controversial.

The government, in collaboration with FAO, is now working on a project to help street food vendors improve their business and boost the nutrition content and safety of what they serve to their customers.

Expert on street food speaks

Mr Stefano Marras, an expert in international street food at the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) says the food vendors usually complain that they don’t see the benefits of paying taxes.

FAO says that in the past four decades, urban areas in Tanzania and the rest of Africa have witnessed increased vending and consumption of street food, but not much has been done to improve the sector in terms of business and boosting nutrition potential.

For most urban dwellers, street food is a quick and inexpensive source of nutrition, while representing a source of income for millions of people (mainly women) with limited access to the wage labour market, such as the story told by Grace and Jamila.

Mr Marras, FAO’s Street Food Expert, the food vending market in Tanzania and in other developing countries faces challenges related to nutritional, economic, and social importance of street food.

“The sector is generally affected, to varying degrees due to nutritionally-unbalanced menus, food safety issues due to underdeveloped public infrastructures…’’ he said recently when he was presenting details of a survey that sought to establish how street food vendors can be helped.

This is part of the wider development agenda, where development practitioners and economists have designed and successfully implemented incentive mechanisms to raise funds to drive desired social behaviours.

This, they say is within the framework of development interventions in the area of health, education, community building.

How to solve the problem

Due to the challenges faced by the street food vendors, a Healthy Street Food Incentives (HSFI) project has been designed to encourage street food vendors to register in a public database and to pay a share of their income as a public fee.

FAO experts say this was also meant to encourage consumers and vendors to sell and consume more by giving them direct and indirect economic benefits.

The project is envisaged to build a platform enabling a participatory, resource-efficient street food safety monitoring system.

But also, it is expected to generate ongoing public revenues thereby enabling the national government to financially support long lasting projects, with no need for external donors.

According to FAO, the food vendors are expected to be driven by market competition and those who are able to provide food that is safe and nutritious to their customers will likely attract more customers eager to win money or free food.

In the project, the vendors are expected to be appealed by the chances to win cash prizes in a project where it is estimated that 7,000 street food vendors participating in the HSFI in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, could generate over $2 million a year for the government.