Traders count losses after demolition of ‘illegal’ stalls

Some pavilions which were set up in Manzese -  Mafiga Ward , Morogoro Municipality were demolished by the authorities yesterday to force  petty trader to relocate to Nanenane  market. PHOTOS|JUMA MTANDA

What you need to know:

  • Reports say that the traders may have lost goods worth billions of shillings in in the municipal council’s crack down. The demolition took place under tight security involving squad of armed riot police and militia in four vehicles, according to Mr Ramadhani Majuala, a fish wholesalers’ secretary and security guard at the market.

Morogoro. Scores of traders who had reportedly set up illegal structures at the Manzese Market woke up to a shock after authorities demolished their stalls in the wee hours of Friday.

Reports say that the traders may have lost goods worth billions of shillings in in the municipal council’s crack down. The demolition took place under tight security involving squad of armed riot police and militia in four vehicles, according to Mr Ramadhani Majuala, a fish wholesalers’ secretary and security guard at the market.

Mr Majuala who witnessed the crackdown told The Citizen that municipal employees started demolishing structures which were closer to the road, before pulling down potatoes, beans, furniture, and onionstalls.

“They then came to fish traders’ stalls and started to demolish everything while pouring sand on fish. I phoned my colleagues who turned up immediately but had nothing to do because the team was fully armed,” he explained.

Mr Majuala said one of the cars was aboard with government officials, including the municipal director, an economist and councillors who were overseeing the exercise.

When asked why they think their structures were pulled down he said they were told that they had built at an open space which was not allocated for business.

Mr Bashiru Adam Luanda, an onion wholesaler added that before setting up their business centre, they had all blessings from the local government leaders and were given authorising documents.

He said they started operating business at Manzese Market on October 06 from Nanenane becausethe latter lacked enough customers.

“The following day, the District Commissioner, Ms Regina Chonjo, came ordering us to vacate immediately. We went to the regional commissioner who ordered the DC to have dialogue with us but the demolition continued beyond our expectation,” he said.

According to Mr Luanda, Onion wholesalers had incurred a loss of up to Sh5.5million on commodities and demolished structures.

Mr Adam Rashidi, a beans trader said they made a loss of Sh1.9million on structures alone, but commodities were not destroyed.

Potato wholesalers interim chairman Ramadhani Mohammed said they were victims because of being accused of invading the open space.

“But this area has been open for many years and it was a hideout of bandits and drugs addicts. We thought we were helping to bring peace at this area, but the municipality has not considered that,” he said.

Mr Mawata said it was difficult to run business at Nanenane Market because there were no customers and they had taken bank loans which had to be honoured.

Ms Khadija Issa said they had destroyed all her commodities and she had no money to start another business.

Ms Mwanabinti Ali said all her three boxes of fish had been destroyed and had nowhere to get another capital.

“I am a widow. I was running this business through a loan. I don’t know how I am going to pay it back. My children are in colleges. I really don’t know,” she said while crying. Ms Vumilia Seleman said she was born in the area in 1962. She added that the place was a bush until this year it had never been developed and the council was quiet. Why now are they humiliating us,” she lamented. Asked why they carried the exercise, the Municipal director, Mr John Mgalula, said they were cleaning up the area because it was invaded by the local dealers. “We told them to go back to their Nanenane Market according to the agreement signed between the council and local traders. They refused on grounds that there were no customers. We told them buyers would follow them slowly, they refused,” said the director.

“ We didn’t enter any contract with them to set up business at the market, we have so far decided to clean the place,” he said, adding that if any of them feels they were ill-treated, let them go to court, we shall answer the charges,” he said. When asked why demolishing took place at night, he said: “They are human beings. They can harm you anytime. It was a security matter that is why we did it at wee hours. And let them know that this is a sustainable exercise and will continue being conducted as usual.”