The Juba City Council (JCC) said Tuesday that it has started allocating temporary operation space to street vendors on land belonging to the University of Juba.
Speaking to Journalists at the Customs Market in Juba, Timon Wani, the director for Munuki Block Council of the City Council, said they are working to relocate street vendors who have been operating along and blocking roads to the designated area following an agreement with the university’s administration.
“We started this work two days ago by bringing in all vendors and hawkers who are blocking the roads from the roundabout of Custom up to Trojan because this road has been very busy,” he explained. “We started by bringing them in to give them places in this University of Juba land near Custom Market but this is going to be a temporary market. We are giving them land measuring two square meters because a wheelbarrow is about one square meter to now operate in a stable environment.”
“We do not want misunderstandings between the vendors and the government that is why we contacted the University of Juba to give us this piece of empty land temporarily,” Wani added.
He acknowledged that some of the vendors complained that the temporary land given to them is small, stressing that it is better than nothing.
According to the official, one of the conditions is that the vendors will pay a monthly fee of SSP 104,500 for land use.
“We are providing them with a temporary allotment document and in that document there are conditions. One is that this piece of land must not be sold, should not be leased to anybody and they should not give it to a brother or somebody to operate on it on his or her behalf,” he clarified. “The land is temporary for one, two, or three years according to the university’s needs because if the university needs this land at any time, we will have to withdraw this land from the vendors after giving them like three months to prepare themselves to search for an alternative. They will go without compensation as part of the conditions.”
Reacting to the allocation of the land, Santino Bol Khor, the chairperson of the Vendors Association in Custom Market, complained that the places given to them are very small.
“I thank the government for opening for us the market because we did not have money and no place to sell our things but the place they have given us is small,” he said.
For her part, Iklas Charles, a vendor operating a restaurant business, lauded the government for allocating them the land, stressing that they have suffered for a long time.
“I have been operating business in this market for a long time and they used to chase us up and down. We want to thank the government because they have seen our suffering and have given us a place. We used to go and look for places to rent and they were very expensive and cost between USD 300 and 400,” she said.
“We have so many colleagues vending on the road that have not gotten places but people we do not know have been allocated land. So, we do not know what the government is going to do for them and are appealing to the government to allocate places to our colleagues who are genuine vendors.”