Effects of hawkers’ strategic business operations in the urban areas and sources of frictions with local government authorities

The study investigated the effects of hawkers’ strategic business operations in the urban areas and sources of frictions with local government authorities focusing on the Dar es Salaam City. Using qualitative approach, the unstructured (in-depth) interviews were administered to collect data from the selected hawkers and the Municipal Councils’ informal sector officials. In selecting hawkers for interviews, the researcher employed snowball sampling, and the Thematic Analysis Techniques were used to analyze data. It was found out that, hawkers business strategic operation is to roam about the streets and display commodities in the prohibited areas, along the roads, pavements and wherever there is a concentration of people and hence customers. The municipal authorities’ approach to regulate them with the intention of collecting taxes and allocate them to the designated market places for their businesses always end up into frictions. As a result, hawkers mention harassment from the city authorities as their main problem, while the municipal authorities mention the daily increase of hawkers and their disobedience in adhering to the city by-laws as the main problem and challenge. It is, therefore, recommended that, rather than chasing hawkers around, the municipal authorities have to adapt a system of assisting hawkers in training and business management. They should also device and operate a credit system that will provide hawkers with capital to enable them operate their businesses lawfully and without harassment in the designated market places.