Western Bahr el Ghazal State Chamber of Commerce Chairman Wol Charles has appealed to the state government, particularly the Wau Town Municipal Council, to halt local taxation of food vendors in the markets.
He said the many local taxes erode the profits and capital of the street vendors and hinder their progress yet they supply food to over 80 percent of the people in Wau Town and the state. Wol suggested that the state government instead support these local entrepreneurs.
“I thank the vendors because these are the people supplying the state and Wau town. Whenever I go to the local markets, particularly in Nazareth Market near the school and in Girinti, the vendors are the ones supplying goods and maintaining the welfare of the citizens because they play a big role,” he said.
The trade union official advised the market vendors to save money and not focus on luxuries.
“Do not think of buying clothes or anything else, we know that your home is suffering, but you need to build homes,” he guided. “So, just keep maintaining your little profit margins, keep buying groundnuts in sacks when it is cheap, and sell at a profit when the price rises and increase your businesses so that you can then invest in other ventures like restaurants.”
He emphasized that the government should not tax food vendors and revealed that the local chamber of commerce does not take any money from them.
Some of the vendors who spoke to Radio Tamazuj urged the chamber for commerce to intervene and convince the municipality to lift taxes. Mary Abang, a vegetable seller in Nazareth Market in Wau Town, said she hardly gets any profit after selling her produce.
“I sell vegetables that sometimes get rotten because they cannot be stored. The tax collectors take SSP 3,500 weekly and the municipality is also collecting. I am calling on the chamber for commerce to at least speak on our behalf to reduce the taxes,” she lamented. “What we are selling is something that one cannot gain big profit and if the tax is high, we cannot even manage to have something on the table for our children.”
Another Wau vendor, Deng Mawien, said local taxes are too high yet they buy produce from farmers in rural areas and later sell them for little profit in town.
“Let the government hear us out because we cannot afford to pay the high taxes because we are suffering,” he stated. “It is true that we do get a little profit a day but our families depend on it to eat.”