Zimbabwe’s new push to formalise the informal economy risks failing for the same reason many reforms fail in this country: it starts from control before it starts from reality.

That reality is simple. The informal economy is not a side problem to be cleaned up. It is the system that has absorbed millions of people after the formal economy failed to produce enough jobs. Vendors, cross-border traders, tuckshop owners, home-based manufacturers, phone repairers, transport operators and digital hustlers are not operating outside the economy. In many ways, they are the economy.

That is why formalisation should not be judged by how tough it sounds in policy speeches. It should be judged by one question: does it help people grow into stability, or does it punish them for surviving?

On paper, formalisation sounds sensible. A broader tax base, better consumer protection, access to finance and stronger social protection are all reasonable goals. No serious person opposes order or legality.

But the issue is not whether formalisation is attractive in theory. The issue is whether Zimbabwe has built a path that ordinary people can realistically enter.

If the process demands expensive licences, high fees, complex registration, rigid sourcing rules and constant interaction with officials, then it will not formalise the poor. It will exclude them. It will reward those with capital and connections, while pushing smaller operators deeper into informality.

That is the danger. Formalisation can easily become gatekeeping by procedure.

Zimbabwe has seen this pattern before. When prices rise, the instinct is to blame traders. When informality expands, the instinct is to criminalise it. When survival businesses multiply, the instinct is to send inspectors before support. That approach confuses enforcement with development.

The informal sector did not grow because Zimbabweans suddenly rejected formal work. It grew because formal work shrank. It grew because industry weakened, policy became inconsistent, inflation eroded salaries, the currency became unstable and small enterprise had to absorb the pressure that the broader economy could not carry.

That means the starting point for reform should be respect, not suspicion.

A vendor is not the same as a kombi operator. A hairdresser is not the same as a tuckshop owner. A young graduate selling phones online is not the same as a cross-border trader importing stock. Treating them all as one category is lazy policy.

A serious formalisation strategy must be tiered. Small operators should face simple, cheap entry requirements. Obligations should increase only as businesses grow. Compliance must be gradual, not punitive.

Trust matters just as much as cost.

For years, many traders have learned to see regulation as a prelude to harassment, confiscation, selective enforcement and bribery. In that environment, registration does not look like opportunity. It looks like exposure.

If the State wants formality, it has to make formality useful. Traders must believe that registration brings real value: safer trading spaces, access to finance, digital payments, legal protection, healthcare options, pension pathways and fair treatment from local authorities.

Without that, formalisation becomes taxation without credibility.

This matters especially for young people. Zimbabwe’s youth unemployment crisis has forced many educated young people into vending, online trade, repair work, tutoring, small-scale services and micro-enterprise. That is not a failure of ambition. It is a response to an economy that has not created enough jobs.

So the policy question should not be how to chase them off the streets. It should be how to help them move from fragility to bankable enterprise.

That means linking formalisation to affordable capital, mentorship, digitised licensing, market access and workable infrastructure. A trader who is formally registered but still has no storage, no water, no power, no security and no access to stock finance has not been empowered. They have just been documented.

This is where Zimbabwe often gets reform wrong. It tries to regulate the visible surface of a problem without fixing the economic structure beneath it.

Formalisation will not work in a chaotic monetary environment. Small businesses cannot plan, save or grow if they cannot trust the value of money. It will not work in a bureaucratic maze where only the well-connected can comply. It will not work where local authorities treat vending spaces as patronage systems instead of economic infrastructure.

The country does not need a war on tuckshops, street traders or micro-enterprises. It needs a pathway that turns necessity into growth.

That means lower compliance costs, simpler rules, better infrastructure, transparent enforcement and policies designed with traders rather than imposed on them. It also means admitting the obvious truth that the informal economy has been carrying the country for years.

Until Zimbabwe builds an economy that creates enough decent formal jobs, formalisation should be about helping people move upward, not forcing them out.

Anything else would not be reform. It would be exclusion dressed up as policy.

Additional reporting sourced from NewsDay. The Granite Post has independently verified key details.