The Minister of State for Economic Monitoring Peter Ogwang has ordered investigations into space allocation in Kitooro Market, Entebbe Municipality.
Since the completion of the market, there has been an uproar from vendors about fraudulent space allocation, poor garbage collection, thefts, high utility bills, and rent charges.
Entebbe Municipal Council projected to collect one billion shillings from rent in the market by end of this financial year. However, the council had collected less than 95 million Shillings between the months of September 2021 and February 2022 compared to shillings 420 million expected in that period.
The council also allocated space to over 1,000 vendors but less than 300 paid rent to the council in the first five months of rent collection.
During a visit to the market on Tuesday, Ogwang discovered that one of the vendors was paying 750,000 Shillings per month, which is 260,000 more than the cost expected to be charged by the council.
Ogwang says that the vendors occupying the lockups are paying different rent charges from those imposed by the municipal council.
Ronald Kusambira, the newly elected Chairman of Kitooro Market, says the new leadership is working hand in hand with Division A and Entebbe Municipal Council officials to rectify fraudulent allocation of stalls and lock-up shops.
Samuel Sseninde, a butcher, accuses Entebbe Municipal Council officials of conniving with the old market leaders to allocate space to non-vendors. Sseninde says genuine vendors missed spaces at the expense of non-vendors.
Zaitun Nabiri, a vendor asked Ogwang to also look into the issue of utility bills. She says that they currently pay 10,000 Shillings for electricity and get 9 units or less because they do not pay directly to power distributor Umeme.
Ogwang told the vendors that his office and the local government ministry will look into their issues and resolve them as soon as investigations are completed.
The construction of Kitooro Market started in April 2017 under the Markets and Agriculture Trade Improvement Projects (MATIP-2 Program). MATIP 2 aims at developing and enhancing the capacity of market infrastructure, to induce the production and marketing of agricultural commodities.
