In the Name of Allah,  Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Composition No (3)

 Street Vendors

If we etymologically trace the term “vendor”, we find that it was originally used to denote: “a person who supplies goods and services to a company or an individual”. However, today  we can talk about a “street vendor” to indicate a person who sells goods usually outside on the street.

      In fact street vending is a job that is subject to controversy. To some people, it is quite appealing and they can raise plausible arguments in favour of it. Conversely, some people doubt the benefit of such a job.

      On the one hand, as regards the merits, street vending yields enough income to many people who cater for sustaining their poor families.

      Furthermore, a lot of university graduates are not offered any career in a factory or a company, and so they resort to working on their own as “street vendors”, and hereby they participate in alleviating unemployment besides guaranteeing a living for themselves.

      Moreover, street vendors maintain twin vital services: they mostly provide unique and rare commodities that are otherwise unavailable, and they partly hold low bargain by demanding reasonable prices. By doing so, they control inflation which aggravates the depreciation of personal real income.

      Suffice it to say that street vendors make the commodities quite accessible to pedestrians who find it fatiguing to fetch goods in shops which are remote and unlikely to contain these goods.

      On the other hand, street vending is not void of disadvantages. First of all, it is a job that is generally carried out without obtaining a legal license from the authorities. Of course, the result of such activity is evading taxes.                                                                       

It is commonly admitted that taxes are levied for the sake of providing the necessary money spent by the government to render services to the community. Therefore, paying taxes is to weaken the government budget and, simultaneously, to deprive the community from governmental services.

      Unfortunately, most of the street vendors are primitive and illiterate. It follows that, they ignore the basic rules of hygiene. That is why they exhibit the food they sell in a shabby way which exposes the food to filth,  contamination and deterioration.

      By spreading their goods in every corner, not only do street vendors impede the traffic and obstruct the movement of people, but they also add a clumsy shape to the streets of the city.

      Let’s not forget the fact that the noise of the street vendors using microphones to call for buyers creates a lot of noise pollution.

      To sum up, nobody can deny that human life, in whatever field, is not exempt from deficiency, and simultaneously it is not void of benefits. Street vending, in this respect, is not  an exception. Therefore, with a little effort from the part of the authorities who simplify trade registration procedures, and the vendors who commit to formal regulations and observe social elegance, things will not fall apart. All is well that is organized well.