By: Nyima Sillah
Market vendors at Serrekunda have allegedly accused Kanifing Municipal Council police of corruption, saying that the officer’s t demands ransom after seizing their goods from them.
Though, many of them are vendors selling in any available open spaces in the market or around the market since they have no shop or stall inside the market. These people depend on this for their living and their paying for tickets, too.
Speaking to The Voice, Ali Njie, a vendor expressed that “I don’t have a specific shop to sell my clothing items so, I can only sell when the market is free in the evening but the police always disturb us by telling us that the place is not meant for selling.”
He said KM should help them with a market to help them have permanent places whereby nobody will disrupt their businesses. “If they say this tarred road in the market is not a selling place, then they should give us a specific place to sell our products because this is the most favorable place for all business men in the evening,” he demands.
He went on that “Sometimes police come to the market unexpectedly and take all our materials. Even during the market peak hours especially in the morning and same thing in the evening. We take the evening advantage to do some selling still our rights is always violated because taking our stuff from us and asking us to pay in order to return them back to us is corruption and infringement of our rights,” he said.
According to another vendor, Lamin Njie “days back they came and packed all my stuff so in that process I lost my wallet which contains the sale amount of all what I sold on that day. I felt bad because my wallet was lost due to their harshness and the packing of my items which they handled roughly.”
Mariam Faal, said: “vendors should be free in the evening without any disturbance but anytime we start selling they interrupt us and treat us like animals.”
“I hate having issues with them but they lack patience totally and they never listen to any explanation. We all have to work as a team because every vendor has a family and every police officer also has a family, too, to feed. So let’s have mercy on each other,” she added.