Kampala City Council has handed over the lease for development of the Nakasero market to vendors amidst heavy celebrations by the market vendors.
Vendors who have spent the entire morning marching through the streets of Kampala were carrying banners that expressed their pleasure for being given the control of the development of their market.
This comes a few months after Kiseka market, another market in Kampala was also leased to vendors for development.
The Deputy Mayor of Kampala City Council Florence Namayanja has told enthused vendors at the City Hall that the lease given to vendors will only last for 5 years.
Namayanja says during these five years these vendors should demonstrate that they are capable of developing the market and that if they demonstrate that they have the ability to develop the market within the five years then the market will be leased to them again for another 49 years.
She says KCC has done this just to be sure of the ability of the vendors to develop the market before it can be leased to them for development for a long period of time.
Meanwhile, the Mayor of Kampala Hajji Ntege Nasser Ssebagala has vowed to fight all the court battles in that are likely to arise as a result of the handover of the lease of Nakasero Market to the Nakasero Market vendors.
This follows a threat by Nakasero Sitting Tenants to take court action against KCC for leasing this market to the vendors and handing over the lease to the vendors yet there is still a case in court concerning this matter.
Ssebagala has told the vendors at city hall that they should not be scared by such threats because it is the city council that will fight those court battles.
He says he is confident that KCC will win those court battles and so the vendors that have got the lease should just ignore such threats.
Ssebagala says such aspects like instituting court actions against KCC when it wants to lease markets to vendors are the reason why KCC has sometimes taken long to respond to the calls of the vendors from various markets to lease the markets to them.
By Zacharia Tiberindwa
