Traders at the gutted COMESA market stay put

TRADERS at the gutted COMESA market have not relocated to City Market because they want to engage the government to allow them construct temporary structures at their premises.

COMESA Traders Trust Board chairperson Misheck Musonda explained that the marketeers wanted to appeal to the local government to allow them build temporal structures for trading while waiting for the secretariat to construct a modern market.

In an interview with the Daily Nation, Mr Musonda said traders feared that their business would be slow at the City Market where there were already other traders.

“We are still seeking authority from the local government so that we can erect temporally structures at our old premises for trading while we wait for a modern market to be constructed,” Mr Musonda said.

Mr Musonda also said that he was not aware of Lusaka Province Minister Bowman Lusambo’s ultimatum to all traders to move to City Market as COMESA market would be sealed off soon and no one would be allowed to trade there.

Meanwhile, one of the traders Mr Christopher Chola said traders were not refusing the government’s directives to go to City Market but they were looking at what would happen once they moved there. He contended that City Market did not have space to accommodate all of them.

“We are not arguing with the government but all we are asking is that it should leave us here, let them have mercy on us and allow us to build temporary shelters,

“City Market has shops and those shops have owners. Once we go there the owners will come for their shops and we will start fighting over spaces. They should just leave us here,” Mr Chola said.