By: Momodou Justice Darboe
Some women vendors at the Serekunda market said their spirits continue to be dampened by the fast-narrowing profit margins of-late.
The vendors expressed fear at the risk of being starved by the very market that they depended on to support their families.
The oft-bustling Serekunda market, according to many vendors that spoke to The Voice, has been experiencing a marked reduction in traffic these days and in recent past.
Currently, many Gambians are struggling with the cost-of-living problem as cost of housing and food prices continue to shoot up at breakneck speed.
The women vendors that spoke to this reporter said business “is not brisk” these days and that if their profit margins continue to plummet, their livelihoods may be destroyed with the dreadful prospect of being swept further down the poverty line lurking in the horizon.
“It is now a struggle to even realize a D50 profit for a day’s sales. This is a struggle that many women vendors here are confronted with and we are now fatigued by it,” Mary Bass, who sells vegetables at the Gambia’s largest open-air market, said.
“Things are no longer the same. Everyone is now a vendor and how do you expect us to realize profit under such circumstances,” fish seller Isatou Saine said in a chat with this reporter.
A whole lot of women vendors, who spoke to this medium, called on the government to protect their livelihoods by creating policies that would put more disposable income into people’s pocket and strengthen their purchasing power. They also called on the government to reign in wholesale prices of food commodities.