The ManicaPost
Abel Zhakata Senior Reporter
MUTARE City Council will on Monday close all unlicensed businesses, including mushrooming tuck shops, in a move that is meant to bring sanity in enterprise as well as boost revenue inflows.
In an interview on Wednesday the director of health services, Dr Antony Mutara, said the local authority had given businesses enough time since the beginning of the year to pay up and put their papers in order.
“As City of Mutare we are embarking on a licensing blitz which begins on May 6. The issue is related to the licensing of shops and businesses in the municipal area,” he said.
“Licensing is normally done after a year and we had given the people of Mutare from January to do the licensing so we are now checking who is licensed and who is not. By now everyone should be licensed because we gave them space to do so.”
Dr Mutara said businesses that are operating without licenses were causing chaos and putting the health of citizens at risk.
“People should do business in the right way and selling and consuming food in approved areas, We are in the process of compiling a data base of how many businesses we have through the GIS system so that we are in a position to know how many have papers and how many are operating illegally,” he said.
When asked what the local authority was going to do with the mush rooming of illegal tuck shops that are giving unfair competition to established businesses, Dr Mutara said those operating on undesignated points will be removed.
“We are mapping everything and very soon we will know who is operating outside the law. Because of economic hardships people were operating anywhere and so when we finish this mapping exercise we will clean up.
“The President has directed us to ensure the ease of doing business in the area under our jurisdiction but this does not mean people must do whatever they want; businesses must be regulated by way of licensing,” he said.
