Tension has been simmering in Gambia’s biggest trading hub where clashes erupted between regular shop owners and street hawkers last week.
Shop vendors and street purveyors plying their wares on motorable roads adjacent to the Serrekunda market have been accusing each other of unlawful encroachment, prompting the municipal council to intervene.
The market, which is the biggest shopping centre in the country has a perennial crisis of space for thousands of sellers who throng there to do business everyday.
Whole streets around the market have been rendered off-limit to vehicle and other forms of traffic as vendors spread their wares on tarmacked roads hoping for brisk ‘wanteer’ business in the lead up to the annual Muslim feast of Eid-dul Adha.
Such is the usual tight bustling scene in the days leading to the Tobaski for many years that both buyers and sellers had taken it for granted.
However, this year market stall owners feel hard done by. They are annoyed that street hawkers who are mainly non-Gambians including Guineans and Senegalese, attract sales from prospective buyers who usually don’t feel the need to visit their shops and stalls.
They complain of street sellers who vend items as diverse as shoes, second-hand phones and shirts undermining or ‘stealing’ their customers away and called on the municipal police to intervene.
As payers of regular taxes to the state and local municipal authorities, market dealers feel their businesses should be protected from the ‘marauding vending horde’ who may even be escaping tax regulations.
Vendors on the other hand also complained about being treated by the police with a heavy-hand and claimed they paid taxes and were cleared by the municipal council to occupy spaces in and around the market.
In a week of simmering tension, tempers have flared up leading to fights between the two groups and skirmishes with the police who were called in to restore law and order.
Using a loudspeaker, the elected head of the Kanifing Municipal Council, Talib Ahmed Bensouda rued the violence of the past few days and urged calm after a committee overseeing the welfare of market stall owners held several meetings with him to resolve the crisis.
”The issue should have been resolved if it was brought to the attention of my office before the clashes between the wanteer vendors and shop owners” he said.
He declared a temporary suspension of the ‘wanteer’ sale and called for dialogue in his office to restore sanity and appealed for mutual understanding on both sides of the Serrekunda market divide.
Bensouda made it clear that those vending on the roads should not misconstrue this as a right but a privilege which should not be taken for granted.
WN/as/APA
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