Windhoek mayor Fransina Kahungu has opened erf 1006 market along Ongaga Street in Okuryangava to vendors some of whom have been battling with the police for selling by roadsides.
The market is neatly floored with markings and iron roof constructed by vocational education students and a city of Windhoek employee.
Mayor Kahungu said construction of markets will be done by residents and not sub-constructors to save the budget.
“The city is trying very hard to make sure that all vendors resume business. We have identified various temporary trading areas to relocate vendors around the municipality so that you start selling. We are witnessing the official hand over of the informal trading site on erf 1006 in Onganga Street in Okuryangava. This is history in the books of the municipality of Windhoek. The material you see here is recycled because we go them from Okahandja Park where we have our bus terminal site,” she said.
City strategic person responsible for informal trading markets, Fillemon Hambuda said a master-plan for informal trading is currently set to be viewed by authorities
“With Covid-19, we realised that really we cannot just do piece-meal things. Just like the master-plan for electricity we also need to come up with a master-plan for the development of infrastructure for informal trading,” he said.
The ministry of trade has given the city N$5 million for the development of markets, he said.
“Now we are done with the draft of the master-plan. After consultations with the regional councils and all stakeholders but now from a technical point of view we are done. On the 27th of this month, we have a workshop with our councillors and later with the regional councillors to present the master-plan to them for their input, maybe amendments here and changes here and then we prioritize to say how should we go about it. We had discussions with our line-minister,” he said.
