The Blantyre City Council has given vendors trading along the streets and other undesignated areas until today, to stop their trade.

In a post on its official Facebook page, the council is ordering all traders to vacate to near-by recognized markets or risk being forcefully moved.

As part of the exercise, the council is also asking those who erected structures along the roads without its approval to take them down immediately.

The council has since urged consumers to avoid purchasing from street vendors as this encourages the traders to continue with the malpractice.

This is part of an exercise the council has embarked on to destroy all illegal structures in the city.

This comes barely weeks after the country’s leader Dr Lazarus Chakwera bemoaned the poor state of the country’s big cities.

The exercise in Blantyre, follows similar ones in Lilongwe and Mzuzu.