CAIRO--Things are seemingly looking up for more than 5.5 million Egyptian street vendors, who constantly suffer from the police confiscating or sabotaging their goods. Recently, the local press has reported that a new law is being prepared to compel the Municipality Police to stop their constant raids on these vendors, most of whom are unemployed, young people. If the bill is approved, the police will have to stop playing cat and mouse with them. The Cairo-based General Federation of Societies for Economic Development is preparing this unprecedented bill, which will do a lot to help these pavement salesmen. The eternal game of cat and mouse game happens everyday, especially in downtown Cairo. Everything becomes chaotic when the vendors, are tipped off by a lookout that the police vans are on the way. They frantically bundle their goods into a big cardboard box or bed sheet and disappear down the nearest side streets or into the darkest corner of a nearby shop. Moments later, if the disappointed police withdraw empty-handed, the vendors crawl back out of the woodwork to resume their unlicensed trade. Allegedly sympathising with these vendors for different reasons, no -commissioned policemen tie the bell to their necks before they've even left the station in their vans. These 5.5 million or so vendors are said to be account for 45 per cent (about LE75 billion-worth) of domestic trade. “The police treat us like thieves,” says Adel Shabrawi, one of these vendors, who sells his goods on the pavement in Attaba. Adel sells very cheap clothes, which poor families and governmental employees can afford. He has a talent for bargaining with four or five customers simultaneously, while constantly scanning the horizon for the Old Bill. “If they turn up, the police smash our goods and then bundle us and the damaged goods into the van,” he protests. “They take us to the police station and we must pay a hefty fine to get our goods back.” Adel interrupts his account in order to inform a female customer, who only wants to pay LE4, that he cannot sell her a headscarf she likes for less than LE5.50 ($1). He fought his way to occupying his section of the pavement in Attaba after leaving commercial secondary school. “I spent two years looking for work without success. Someone then suggested I should try working as a street vendor,” says Adel, who, surprisingly, is really making a go of it. “But, instead of chasing us, they should give us licences. After all, like other traders, we're prepared to pay taxes and other fees.” Adel succeeded in getting a few square yards of the pavement after coming to an agreement with the owner of a nearby store. “Many of us co-operate with these stores. They give us items to sell and we divide the profits at the end of the day,” he explains. Strangely, the proposed bill is facing strong opposition from none other than the owners of these stores, who are afraid that it will make the vendors more independent. “The bill gives these vendors the right to occupy the pavement in front of my place and I won't be able to get rid of them,” says one store owner, speaking on condition of anonymity. “These vendors sell their goods much more cheaply than we do, so in the end our businesses will collapse.”
