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Tororo, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The continued lockdown in Tororo district due to the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a delay in the commissioning of the Tororo central market.
According to municipal officials, by March this year, the Contractor Young Jin Construction Inc. Company, a Korean firm had finalized works on the market and is now waiting to handover and issue a certificate of completion.
The market, a 27 billion project has facilities like lockups, saloons, secretarial services shops, warehousing and wholesale facilities, restaurants, stalls with lockers for food stuffs, groceries, clothes, shoes, stalls for fish and meat, cold storage rooms and fish dressing rooms.
Other facilities include space for banks/ microfinance institutions, clinics, pharmacies and a day-care center among others.
Paul Omoka, the Town Clerk Tororo Municipality told URN that the municipality has conducted inspection in the market and found out that everything required in the market is available and that by next month, the contractors will be exiting the site.
He said that they cannot now commission the market because it will attract large groups of people which poses a threat of spreading the COVID-19 disease hastening to add that they may not wait for the commissioning to put the vendors back in the market as long as the lockdown is lifted.
Omoka said that the contractor will be handing over the market to the Municipal Officials scientifically and then they will wait until the situation normalizes.
John Opio, the Mayor Tororo Municipality said that they will consider the sitting tenants of the market while allocating stalls before any other person is given space to operate in the market.
Opio said that his office had arranged that the allocation process begins on the 26th/March/2020 but this did not happen due to the fear of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Robert Wejulu and Christine Nakintu all vendors operating on the streets said that they want the market to be reopened soon to save them suffering of the sunshine and rain which destabilizes them while working from the streets.
Over 1000 vendors were evacuated from the market to pave way for the construction of the markets built under the Markets and Agricultural Trade Improvement Programme – MATIP. The new market will accommodate over 2000 vendors.
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