BAZAAR BEDLAM
More than 300 gather at Titiwangsa Stadium, interrupt City Hall’s bazaar lot-drawing session
WEEKS of simmering tension between Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) and traders over the relocation of the Lorong Tuanku Abdul Rahman Ramadan bazaar came to a boil in a protest at Titiwangsa Stadium here yesterday.
More than 300 traders assembled to protest City Hall’s decision to move the bazaar to the heritage quarter in Jalan Raja, temporarily halting its lot-drawing session for the bazaar traders here.
The protest started at 10.30 am, when Kuala Lumpur Bumiputera Traders and Hawkers
Association president Datuk Seri Rosli Sulaiman walked onstage with an entourage and staged a protest that played out for more than two hours.
Rosli, who interrupted the lot-drawing process, asked City Hall officers to stop the session until their views were heard.
The officers from City Hall’s Licensing and Petty Traders’ Management Department complied and allowed him to proceed.
Rosli announced that the traders would not allow the session to continue until the bazaar was allowed to remain in Lorong Tuanku Abdul Rahman.
He urged Federal Territories Minister Khalid Samad to compel Mayor Datuk Nor Hisham Ahmad Dahlan to meet them to address the issue.
Many traders, he claimed, were caught by surprise over the change location and that it was only communicated a week before the closing date for the online application of the bazaar last month.
“We were not consulted. There was no way for us to clarify whether what the minister told night market traders in early March about relocation to Jalan Raja was real or hearsay.
“We met the minister only once after he announced that Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman would be closed on Feb 15 and they planned to move us there,” he said.
Rosli later called off the protest following a closed-door meeting with City Hall’s Licensing and Petty Traders’ Management Department deputy director Ismadi Sakirin at noon.
Community activist Gulam Muszaffar Gulam Mustakim urged the minister and the mayor to set up a WhatsApp group in order for them to be on the same page as he claimed that they appeared to be making frequent contradictory statements.
Page 1 pic: Traders protesting against Kuala Lumpur City Hall’s decision to move the Ramadan bazaar to Jalan Raja, at Titiwangsa Stadium in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.