LCC hikes market fee by 100%
The Lilongwe City Council (LCC) has justified its decision to raise daily market fees by 100 percent for its vendors, saying K50 per day was the lowest in the Central Region.
Speaking during a news conference yesterday, the council’s director of commerce and trade Genscher Mbwabwa said the levies will help the council improve service delivery to residents.
Said Mbwabwa: ‘’There is no justification for vendors to dispute [the new rates]. I am saying this because with the previous K50 [per day] they were paying, the council would collect K17 000 per day which would come up to almost K600 000 per month.
‘’Now when you begin deducting the salaries for market masters, then sweepers and other expenditures most markets were operating at a loss. We ended up getting money from city rates which was not even working.”
According to Mbwabwa, vendors will have no choice but to comply. He also said that the council has instituted an audit of accounts to look into market fee usage.
Three days ago, LCC announced that it had raised the market fee by 100 percent from K50 to K100 per day. Vendors have questioned the justification given the markets are not well looked after.
Ironically, LCC councillors earlier in the week claimed that 90 percent of the council’s revenue from market fees was going into people’s pockets due to poor systems in place.
Step 1
Building a state of the art market befitting a city that is a capital of a country.
Step 2
Allocate all vendors secure and human friendly selling space in the market
Step 3
Not only charge the vendors proper fees for the space they use, register all of them as legitimate merchants. Of course that registration process translates into revenue as each vendor pays fees on application based on what he/she sells. And yes, they all get an annually renewable licence for that.
Step 4
Police the market to ensure no vandalism behaviour takes place. Oh, this would also make anyone not registered and not selling in the market an illegal vendor punishable with a heavy fine when found (revenue) not long prison sentences (expenditure).
Step 5
Relocate the bus terminal to another state of the art building where al bus operators should be paying to access the facility to get passengers (revenue). And bus operator found using other means of ferrying passengers should be heavily fined (revenue) and not imprisoned (expenditure).
Step 6
Working with the Malawi Police service, step up rogue and vagabond patrols around these facilities. Anyone found loitering, heavy fine (revenue) and not imprisonment (expenditure). If they cannot pay, they settle their fines through community work (free labour to clean the city) followed by a warning never to be seen loitering in the city again (reduction of thieves and other antisocial behaviour.
Step 7
Continuous evaluation of other areas needing development. This could be achieved by conducting low cost research by introducing suggestion boxes in the city facilities including markets, passenger terminals, public walkways etc.
Step 8
Of course give me the job to manage the city council as the Chief Executive to make all these steps, and a lot more that I have not listed down here, a reality. I know there are questions like where do you get funds for those projects. Easy. Just give me the job and get rid of all that deadwood at the civic centre.