Small-Scale Business Operators Association has insisted that government should relocate refugees and asylum seekers to Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Dowa and not allow them to continue operating their businesses.

In a written response to a questionnaire, the association’s secretary Tennyson Mulimbula said the refugees and asylum seekers are making the business environment unconducive for them.

Dzaleka refugee camp

Recently, the grouping also presented a petition to lawmakers to push for the same.

This was after yet another failure to relocate the refugees and asylum seekers following an injunction that foiled the move at the lapse of the deadline of November 30 2022, for those residing in rural areas to return to the camp.

Said Mulimbula: “The refugees and asylum seekers have made the business environment unconducive for the members of the association because the business spectrum is controlled by demand and supply, thus the coming in of their small-scale businesses has increased the supply and lowered the demand.”

He further noted that the refugees and asylum seekers who own wholesale shops in the cities, have hawkers in both rural and urban areas through whom they sell their goods on retail but at wholesale price.

Mulimbula also complained that the refugees and asylum seekers entice landlords to evict local business persons from their business buildings by promising higher rental fees and advance payments of six months, which works to the disadvantage of local small-scale businesses.

Government ordered all refugees residing in undesignated places to go back to Dzaleka on 1st April 2021, but the refugee community obtained an injunction for judicial review on the decision.

On August 12 2022, the court ruled in government’s favour which led to sustain its earlier decision to relocate the refugees by November 30 2022 for those refugees residing in rural areas and February 1 2023 for those in urban areas.

But on November 30, another injunction was taken, stopping the government from enforcing the relocation of refugees and asylum seekers to the confines of Dzaleka Refugee Camp which is currently home to over 56 000 people.

The fresh injunction also followed calls by both refugee and human rights advocates for the government not to implement the relocation, citing human rights violations, loss of livelihoods and deplorable living conditions as some of the reasons.

However, as of 31 October 2022, UNHCR had only received $4.9 million (about K6.3 billion) out of the $22.9 million (about K27.9 billion) required to adequately support refugees and asylum-seekers in the country.

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