By Godwin Abedican

Arua

A group of traders in Arua city under their umbrella body, Arua women business enterprise limited are appealing for government support towards the construction of a 4.6 billion shillings market structure to help aid their business. This project by the traders comes after the vendors in the market reportedly refused to allow the attachment of their market land to Arua main market during the reconstruction of the marketing on grounds that the leaders were intending to give them only the ground floor but would own the other flours.

Established in 1995, the vendors had to begin with with the process for the purchase of the plot of land on plot number 4 go-down road and had their first constructions at the market in 1998 which they eventually occupied in 2005, which houses are now destined for demolition for the new structure to be put up on the same piece of land.
According to Felista Osobiru who started her business in 1995 at the inception of the group, they started their business at verandas before they had the current structures. “Our business here has given us a lot of benefits. This business was like a laughing stock to many because we would always smell but we just paid no attention to those. We have been able to do good things out of this business. We have been able to pay children in school, I was able to pay 6 children in the university out of this business. According to her, their children will be the immediate beneficiaries of the new market project.
However she says when the main market construction was being done, part of their land was used and it left the vendors struggling about the issues of access routes to their market made them to buy land for the road.
Albert Newton Dramani a former civil servant who served for 42 years is the advisor to the vendors in this market. He inherited the position of a member of the vendors from his late wife Natalia Dramani who died in 2003 as stated in the constitution of the vendors that incase a member dies then the next of kin automatically joins to replace her hence explaining why some men are members of the group of vendors.
Elected as the advisor to the vendors, he says they have chosen to start to with the little money they have such that it can help them in lobbying from the government and other financial institutions “We have now started with the little money. This money is going to get finished anytime because the material cost is very high. What now we are going to do is we have encouraged members anytime to put money and that’s how we are going to move. By at least 5 years the place here must be complete,” he said.  

Zena Ocokoru 65 years, the chairperson of the traders Association, she says it’s important for people in business to have sustainable plans for the future of their businesses. “Normally we have season for purchasing that is from April to August and our sales period is normally from November to March when it is dry season in Arua and rainy season at the lakeshores”. She attributes the high sales during the dry season to limited food variety in the market like vegetables.
According to her they have been making a lot of requests from the government for support but they have not been helped. “When these people are coming for campaigns, we always put our request. Even we have a lot of papers here to take to the president since he likes women groups. We tried for ourselves to do it but there was no response to us. We wanted to wait from the government but we felt we can’t wait longer and the value of the monies we have may drop. So since we have started, where the money will end is where we shall stop,” she narrated.
  
David Avutia, the engineer undertaking the construction works raises challenges of access that is affecting the progress of the work since many times when materials are brought, they first have to negotiate with fish sellers who currently sit on the access road to the site. “I can assure you that I am the only person who gives instruction on what ratio to use at a given time especially, for the concrete works. I am the one who did the computations for the materials required and based on the available funds, I have limited the extent of works. Where money is not fore seen, that is where we are going to stop, not to compromise quality and not to have disagreements with personnel, he said while responding to questions against shoddy works in the project.
The association which started pioneer members 23 in number since then form the shareholders among the over 200 vendors in the market. The 23 shareholders have since been charged 11 million shillings each to pay in the project period of 5 years to help in funding the project.
The initial amount that the vendors of the market have at hand for the commencement of the work is 200 million shillings as they are appealing for support from the government and other willing members of the public.

The entire construction, a two storied building will be constructed commencing with the first phase of 6 units having 2 compartments each while the entire building consists of 23 units of two rooms each per floor making a total of 69 units and 138 rooms eventually when completed.