Hoima West street vendors want permanent market allocation
Written by admin on January 24, 2023
Foodstuff vendors operating from either side of the road at Duhaga Roundabout in West Division, Hoima City want the government to allocate them a permanent market to avoid frequent evictions from their selling places for other developments.
The vendors say routine dislodgments disrupt their business enterprises and dispossess them of their customers, thus, affecting their financial stability.
Mr John Kigongo, the Vice Chairman of Duhaga market occupied by more than 140 vendors, says they have for years occupied and temporarily operated from private land that always see them displaced over time yet the government is able to provide land for the construction of a permanent market.
Ms Margaret Kwesiga, one the food vendors at the roadside market, says after being evicted from the once ostensibly gazetted market also at Duhaga, she was shocked to be told that all the sellers had to vacate it for private development.
She is uncomfortable that despite operating from the road side market, soon the vendors will automatically be evicted from their current selling place since it is not a strategic area for a permanent market.
“We need the government to get us a permanent place and construct us a permanent market which will not again make us keep on moving from place to place,” she says.
However, the West Division Mayor, Mr Robert Ruhiigwa Kyomuhendo, says the Division authorities have already identified a big piece of land for the construction of a permanent market able to accommodate the vendors off the road where accidents are inevitable.
Though he does not disclose where the piece of land has been secured, he says the authorities are still working on modalities to formalise the project.
“We have already identified the land which is big enough to accommodate all the traders but we are only working on formalisation which will take a short period of time,” the mayor discloses.
