Street vendors are an integral part of urban economies, offering easy access to a wide range of affordable goods and services in public spaces or simply taking service to the people. 

With the economy taking a toll on every household, street vendors too are finding it tough to make profits from their businesses and stay afloat. 

Every day for the past 19 years, Maria Kangungu has woken up at five o'clock in the morning to sell her vegetables. 

Kangungu does not have a formal job, and that is what ignited her business in 2005.

Street vendors in Grootfontein are calling on their municipality to fast-track the construction of an open market to allow them to flourish in their businesses.

The vendors of Grootfontein have been in desperate need of an open market for years, as selling on the streets is not conducive.

From time to time, the municipality would move them from the CBD but have stopped doing so and rather charges the vendors for selling at undesignated places around town.

Vendors were also asked to move to a fenced-off municipal place for the town to look organised.

Vendors who sell their products alongside the road leading to Chinatown Market in Windhoek are not happy with the way Namibia Revenue Agency (NamRA) is purportedly handling their businesses.

They have expressed worry over the products being seized by the revenue agency as part of its campaign to punish companies that manufacture counterfeit items.

These are the vendors conducting business outside Chinatown and selling cosmetic and medicinal products. They expressed dismay with the methods employed by NamRA in its operations.

Vendors at the Swakopmund craft center expressed disappointment at Namibians, whom they say do not support locally manufactured arts and crafts.

For the past two years, vendors say they have been fighting their way through the impact of COVID-19 in the hope that 2023 will bring about growth and positive change.

The vendors expressed that the year 2022 has been difficult, as the market that depends on tourism is still recovering from the impacts of COVID-19.

Street vendors have expressed their dismay over the non-existence of social security provisions and protection benefits, with women, in particular, feeling the pinch, especially when on maternity leave.

They expressed these sentiments at the first commemoration of Street Vendors Day.

Despite the fact that street vendors form part of the informal market and make up 63% of the business landscape in Namibia, they still struggle to make ends meet.