Street Vendors in Kampala City, Uganda: A Question of Urban Economic Policy Reforms

In 2021, Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) re-enforced its decision to decongest the city. One of the key strategies was to do away with street vendors and hawkers within Kampala. Law enforcement officers for KCCA resorted to arrests, impounding of vendors’ merchandise, and other sorts of enforcement procedures majority of which were ‘hard measures’. The KCCA Executive Director Ms. Dorothy Kisaka had instructed all street vendors to start operating from zoned locations mainly including major markets gazetted by the city authorities such as St. Balikuddembe (Owino), Nakasero market, Wandegeya Market, Nateete, Busega. From a survey conducted by Gateway Research Centre (2022), 85% of the traders lamented about the reduction in daily income arising from working in the zoned markets compared to street vending. The average daily income from streets was fifty thousand shillings (UGX 50,000) which is approximately USD 13.5 per day compared to only seven thousand shillings (UGX 7,000) which is less than USD 2 per day earned by working in a zoned market. This implies the average daily income earned per vendor in a zoned market is below that of street vendors by 86%. Other concerns raised by vendors have been explained in this policy brief.