Cleanup tough on poor in Benin economic hub
COTONOU:
Traders and hawkers armed with brooms and bags sweep pavements and scoop up rubble in Benin’s economic capital Cotonou, where the authorities have ordered a vast city cleanup. From informal street markets to bars and food stalls illegally built on public land, nothing has been spared, as squads of workers move in to clear the chaos and make the bustling city beautiful again. But the cleanup has made daily life hard for many in Benin, where the vast majority work in the informal sector.
Like other fast-growing west African urban hubs, Cotonou has vendors selling everything from clothing to fast food by the roadside, and restaurants that spring up all over with their plastic chairs and tables. “Nature abhors a vacuum,” deputy mayor Florentin Tchaou told AFP. “People will take advantage of any empty space to expand their businesses and increase their visibility so as to improve sales.”
Eviction notice
But in July, freshly elected President Patrice Talon decided it was time to give the country a facelift and gave major cities a six-month deadline to clear their chaotic crowded roads. Large red crosses were spray painted on building walls due for demolition and posters added warnings that eviction day was near. Ageline Bocovo, who has been selling clothes in Cotonou for five years, didn’t believe it would happen, but was wrong. “We couldn’t fight the police with our bare hands, we had no choice,” she said, when, on January 5, she was forced to leave. Bocovo personally smashed her stall into smithereens, keeping some of the bricks to build a new stall on a smaller street. “The rest of the rubble will be sold. But it won’t bring in much cash,” she said. Armelle Choplin, an urban planner at Cotonou’s Research Institute for Development, said the “measure affects the little people, who aren’t necessarily organised into associations or unions, as is the case in Anglophone countries like Ghana.” — AFP