Street vendors may be creating employment for themselves when others are being laid off but they need to be regulated, experts tell Niveen Wahish iAmm Mohamed is a grocer. He does not own a shop but he has a small truck which he drove every morning at dawn to one of Dokki's squares or parks for a couple of hours, sold all his goods, then took off again. That was before the revolution. Since the revolution, he has parked and never left. Today he has a prime spot almost in the middle of the square and he is not alone. Hundreds of other street vendors have done exactly the same in various locations around Cairo and other cities. They have set up shop where they please, and where their customers can easily spot them. Before the revolution, this would not have been possible. Police would have chased them, often confiscating their goods. In fact, they often displayed their goods on a huge piece of cloth which they would pick up at the four ends to run away if they were tracked down. Today, with the thin presence of police or their focus on more harmful crimes, street vendors are making Cairo traffic a nightmare. And it is not only drivers who are complaining but shop owners as well. Osman who owns a shop down the road from where Amm Mohamed has parked is complaining. "Now people find it easier to stop by Amm Mohamed to get their needs rather than walk all the way to the end of the street. And he has almost no overheads since he does not pay rent nor does he have any electricity bills. Should I do the same and set up my groceries at a corner as well?" he asked. The same goes for others. Street vendors are selling everything from sweet potatoes to wallpaper, shoes, and uncooked pasta. And today, they have turned every street into a souq. "It is their way of expressing their demands for acknowledgement. They are taking what they think is their right by force," explained Sahar El-Tawila, National Project director of the Social Contract Centre. "But," she said, "the way they exist today is causing total chaos and affecting the livelihood of shop owners. Letting things be means of legalising chaos and opening the door for anyone to do what they please regardless of the law." The immediate solution, she said, was to return these vendors to the areas where they were originally selling their goods before they decided to relocate and to recognise their presence legally. But on the longer run, she believes an area has to be specified where they will be allowed to legally set up. "As long as what they are selling is legal, they should be regulated." Sherif Delawar, management professor at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology agrees. He says that, like in developed countries, they must be given prime spots to set up and sell at least once a week. "They are part of the informal sector which is the greatest support for the economy. During and after the revolution, it has been keeping the economy going." A policy viewpoint issued by the Egyptian Centre for Economic Studies maintains that, "some 1.4 million entrepreneurs -- 82 per cent of all entrepreneurs in Egypt -- worked in the informal sector in 1996. The sector employed 8.2 million workers-- more than employment in the formal private sector (6.8 million) or the government (5.9 million)." In fact, as Iman Soliman, vice president of Social Planning Analysis and Administration Consultants (SPAAC) says, "street vending is a form of empowering the working poor because the entry cost into the business is very low." SPAAC have worked directly with food street vendors in the Minya governorate as well as the districts of Road Al-Farag and Masr Al-Qadima in Cairo. These vendors, says Soliman, are not only making their own living, but they are rendering a service, especially in the poorer areas. "They are selling nutritious cheap food." The solution to her lies in licensing which has worked in the governorate of Minya. Their location and timing can be set in their licence and accordingly they can be held accountable. She acknowledged that the situation in Cairo is more difficult and will need more advocacy by the non-governmental organisations together with the government. And as Delawar says, what is happening today is only the result not the cause. It is the result of bureaucracy. The solution to this problem lies, he says, in reforming the administrative body, making life easier for anyone who wants to set up business. "Egyptians are entrepreneurs by nature, yet the environment does not allow that potential to materialise. So far, the government has not been there to help, only to punish violators." And to get the vendors to cooperate, both Delawar and El-Tawila believe the vendors must take part in the decision process to choose the spot where they will be allowed to display their goods. "Here is where the local council should play a role," says El-Tawila, adding that "this is not something the Sharaf government should worry about. The governorates should take charge of restoring order." "Think how to help them not eliminate them," adds Delawar. "They have to feel the government is there to help by giving them areas where they will be able to make profit; it should not talk to them about taxes because that would drive them away." But that should only be the short term solution, according to Delawar. "This is a problem that has to be resolved holistically, not piecemeal. It all goes back to reforming the system." In fact, as the ECES Policy Viewpoint says, regarding the informal sector as a whole, "economic rationality suggests that entrepreneurs in the informal sector must have found it more rewarding to stay informal rather than join the legal sector," adding that "in other words, they are willing to forgo the benefits of better protection of property rights and to bear the cost of extra- legality [in the form of bribes and costly finance] rather than endure a restrictive business environment." To convince them to become formal, the paper recommended that, "it is therefore necessary to adopt sufficient reforms to tilt the balance of net benefits in favour of joining the legal sector."
