The Addis Ababa City Trade Bureau says most clothing, shoes and electronic items being sold by street vendors are sourced from contraband trade.
According to the Bureau, boutiques also negotiating with illegal street vendors to sell their items on a commission basis. The Bureau says many customs offices are culpable because they sell reimbursed properties to traders who also give the items to street vendors.
Contraband trade gets a high volume of items to street vendors illegally.
Kasuahn Mulatu, Informal trade monitoring team head at the Bureau told Capital that illegal street vending is still a major problem even though some progress has been made.
“Some shops give their products to people so they can sell them on the street. We need to work together to solve this problem. This not only includes ten institutions but land management as well. All stakeholders need to improve their efforts.”
“Sidewalk vending is currently illegal in Addis, although the Bureau is working on a comprehensive sidewalk vending program that would fully regulate it. There are 7, 168 vendors working in 121 city areas legally. However over 50,000 are still selling illegally so there is a lot of work to be done.”
To register, street vendors must present identification cards from a Kebele, and have less than 10,000 birr in capital. A registration fee of 70 Br is also mandatory. Upon registration, the vendors receive a taxpayer identification number and a badge to wear at all times while working in the marketplaces.