Dakar, June 30 (APS) – The new authorities intend to focus on communication and dialogue with street vendors to the detriment of the so-called “strong” method used by local authorities in eviction operations and liberation of public roads, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko declared on Sunday.
“The President of the Republic invites town halls to relax eviction and freeing operations on public roads, by prioritizing communication and dialogue with street vendors,” said Mr. Sonko at the end of a visit he made to the Colobane market in Dakar.
The choice of the Colobane market to host this visit is only a pretext, he recalled, noting that this message from the President of the Republic which he carried “is addressed to all local authorities, to all the traders of Dakar and the regions as well as all the populations near markets”.
The municipal authorities of this commune of Dakar had decided the temporary closure of this commercial zone from Saturday June 29 at midnight to Monday July 1, 2024 at 11:59 p.m., for a cleaning and decongestion operation of the public highway.
“The measures to evict street vendors from the markets must be followed by support measures,” insisted the head of government, recalling however that the management of the markets falls exclusively within the competence of local authorities.
“We will see, with the town halls, how to assess the compensation to be granted to the impacted traders and the replacement solutions to be provided, during each decluttering operation initiated,” Ousmane Sonko stressed.
In front of aprons and street vendors who were visibly attentive to his speech, the Prime Minister invited them to accept, in return, the support measures that the State could offer them, relating in particular to resettlement sites, sites to be developed that they must return to.
Awaiting a definitive resolution of these problems caused by eviction operations, he called on “town halls and local populations to show respect towards street vendors”.
The aim, according to him, is to achieve “the creation of jobs and not their elimination”.
The Prime Minister also noted that the anarchic occupation stems from shared responsibilities, noting that “if the law were applied in all its rigor, which is certain, several stores built on the public highway would have been dismantled with mechanical shovels.”
“The responsibility of the State is based on the absence of monitoring and control of the process of anarchic occupation of the public highway, for several years, while that of the town halls is linked to the disorderly delivery of occupations of the public domain” , he explained.
As for the populations living near the markets, their share of responsibility, he indicated, concerns the transformation of their houses into points of sale.
Ousmane also cited “the failure of public policies” among the causes of this anarchic occupation of public roads.
In particular, he was referring to “agricultural and economic policies that have failed over the years”, leading to the exodus of populations from the interior to the country’s urban centres.
AB/SMD
