As Traders And Hawkers Fight For Spaces
By Edwin M. Fayia, III, fayiaedwin@gmail.com
Reliable statistics from major data collection institutions have shown that the Red-Light General Market is Liberia’s largest business hub, situated in the Paynesville suburb of Monrovia.
According to other statistics obtained by this news outlet and corroborated with some independent institutions in the country, the Red-Light General Market plays host to ninety nine percent (99%) of locally produced commodities from rural Liberia.
The pollution of this densely populated market area is even being heightened with some of the rubbish being burnt sending poisonous smoke into the air.
Besides, another challenge at the Red-Light General Market is the lawlessness being exhibited by motorcyclists, wheelbarrow peddlers and petty trading street hawkers that continue to pose grave constraints and challenges to the police and other law enforcement agencies.
On top of this sanitation menace and nightmare is that eighty percent (80%) of the drainages constructed more than fifty years ago are all clogged. And many of the drainages have also outlived their usefulness and needed urgent rehabilitation and reconstruction in the Paynesville commercial district.
As a result of population growth over the years in that part of rural Montserrado County, the snail pace of garbage collection and disposal has become insurmountable to the Municipal Government of Paynesville City.
Several Liberian and other business proprietors in Paynesville have described the general outlook of the Red-Light Market’s five major entry points as “a haven of nasty, rotten massive garbage pollution”. This commercial hub continues to spark shockwaves of embarrassment to the hundreds of business entities operating in this area.
Regrettably, even in the heart of the very Red-Light Market, a huge pile of garbage continues to be dumped by petty traders, large business entities and the thousands of residents in the neighbourhoods of this commercial center.
For several weeks, the stockpile of garbage has not been collected by the contracting entities responsible for the collection and disposal of waste. In the midst of the garbage are rodents, cockroaches mosquitos and even scorpions are in the garbage littering the area, where agricultural produce such as corn, cucumber, pumpkins and pepper and fruits are being sold. Some are even being sold on the ground and not on tables.
Besides, on a daily basis, men and women continue to use the various garbage dumpsites as latrines to urinate and defecate during day and night hours at the Red-Light General Market in Paynesville.
Health workers and medical related entities established at the Red-Light Market have on many occasions complained to the relevant agencies and ministries about the unsanitary and unhygienic conditions of Paynesville.
Such complaints, the health and medical personnel claim have only fallen on deaf ears, with Liberian authorities doing little or nothing to change the situation.
One urban planner and Analyst, Garrison B. Washington told www.newspublictrust.com that this situation is going from bad to worse at the Red-Light General Market.
Mr. Washington also added that all heads of the Municipal Governments of Monrovia and Paynesville continue to treat the two vital cities in the country with lip service.
Another water engineer Moses B. Willie, III noted that how on earth should the two important cities be treated in such unwholesome manner, as each of the city of Monrovia and Paynesville continue to receive huge national budgetary support and allotments from the Liberian Government.
As a result, he recommended that a vigorous month-long clean up should be launched in the two urban cities and that all municipal laws and regulations should be enforced without fear or favour, no matter violator(s) political and economic connections in the country.