Video: Mafume Slams Fake Malls, Calls for Licensing Crackdown

By Loyd Matare

Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume has lashed out at shop owners falsely branding their subdivided spaces as malls, accusing them of dodging city regulations and creating chaos in the urban landscape.

“The issue of what they call malls, frankly speaking, does not fit the definition of what we know as malls, either locally or internationally,” Mafume said. “Someone partitions their shop, thinks of their grandmother, names it after her, and suddenly claims it’s a mall. That’s not a mall—it’s just a collection of shops.”

The mayor made it clear that genuine shopping malls, such as Westgate and Sam Levy’s Village, follow specific planning and zoning regulations. In contrast, many so-called “malls” springing up across the city are merely divided shop spaces with multiple tenants, attempting to bypass individual business licensing.

“The idea behind calling it a mall is likely to avoid paying for the licences of each business inside. But these are not common ownership spaces—they are simply different shops operating under one roof,” he said.

Mafume warned that Harare City Council would clamp down on these operations and enforce the recently approved budget, which now considers shop floor sizes when determining licence fees.

“In the past, a one-size-fits-all licence fee applied, meaning a large supermarket and a tiny shop paid the same. That’s no longer the case. We’ve created clusters where businesses pay according to their floor space,” he explained.

Beyond licensing concerns, the mayor said these pseudo-malls contribute to urban decay, increasing litter, traffic congestion, and pollution.

“They create more litter, more traffic, and more disorder. We need to ensure that every business of that nature has proper waste management in place,” Mafume said.

Harare City Council is now tightening enforcement, with the mayor warning that businesses masquerading as malls will face serious consequences.

“We discourage these shop owners from paying municipal police under the table. They should pay their licences like any other business. We will not tolerate this deception anymore,” Mafume said.

With the city battling overcrowding and poor sanitation, authorities are now taking a firm stance against what the mayor calls a “misuse of space and regulatory loopholes.” The crackdown is expected to restore order in Harare’s fast-expanding retail sector.