Traders in Juba City’s Gudele 1 Market were on Monday left counting losses after the Juba City Council (JCC) Mayor Johnson Swaka went to the market with bulldozers and started demolishing structures and opening roads without prior notification.
Several roadside vendors and traders lamented that their merchandise and shops were destroyed during the operation.
A market vendor who only identified as Faiza, a lactating mother who recently lost her husband, said they were treated unfairly by the city authorities despite diligently paying taxes.
“The city council officials came and said this place is a road. If they had notified us early enough, it would be understandable, but they just came and told us to put our goods inside the shops and started demolishing the shops where we put our goods,” she lamented. “I have just delivered a set of twins. I lost my husband about two months ago, and I am working to raise these children. The milk I bought for these children was destroyed in the shop.”
“We pay all fees for business licenses, garbage, security, and many others; there is nothing we do not pay, but when they came to demolish, they were very rude and just silenced us,” Faiza added.
She appealed to city authorities to notify people in the future if they want to do the same thing elsewhere.
For his part, John Kenneth, Deputy Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce at Gudele 1 Market, confirmed that the mayor and his team went to the market and started demolishing structures without notice.
“I was in the office and learnt that the mayor came to the market and as we were preparing to welcome him, we learnt that there is an order to demolish. I decided to talk to the senior officers of the city council to give the traders a day to remove their structures, but they said the demolition was going to happen immediately,” he narrated. “I asked them to let the traders remove their goods, but the bulldozer started demolishing the shops. They claimed that they had notified seven days ago, but to the best of my knowledge, there was no written official document.”
“The same traders who are on the road are the ones paying taxes and charges. There are rates for the office of the mayor, which they paid a few days ago, and if JCC planned to demolish their shops, they should not have taken money from the traders,” Kenneth added. He said one of the traders was arrested.
Meanwhile, Robert Francis Pitia, Chairperson of the Central Equatoria State Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture, condemned the demolition of the market structures by JCC.
“What happened is very wrong; nobody who is responsible should do such a thing. What the mayor did was very wrong and an act of an irresponsible person. You cannot come to the market where your people work and start demolishing their structures without notification,” he said. “This is a road, yes, and there are verandas where people sell goods, and the JCC is taxing them, then you demolish them. There is no logic in this because there are some women here who do not have anyone to support them.”
Pitia said they are assessing the losses incurred by the traders and will look at the alternative of dragging the mayor to court for compensation.
“The option we are exploring now is to work with the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in the market to allocate temporary spaces to the affected people,” he stated. “We are going to assess the level of destruction and once we agree as a team, we will file a legal case to seek recompense.”
Efforts to reach JCC Mayor Swaka for comment on the matter were futile.
The security operatives who escorted the mayor on the demolition exercise prevented journalists from recording videos and taking photos. A journalist was harassed and the memory card of his camera was confiscated by the security officers of the mayor.