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Livelihoods destroyed as Kampala vendors are evicted without being offered viable alternatives
KCCA truck carrying a kiosk
Hundreds of thousands of Ugandans who have been eking a living as vendors on Kampala streets selling various goods or offering mobile money services are facing a bleak future after the city authority clamped down on their activities.
Over the past fortnight, the city authority has used maximum force including using cranes and military force to uproot vendors some of whom had cemented their places with semi-permanent structures.
The eviction by Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has been lauded by many who say that the operation was necessary to restore trade order by giving incentives to those who pay licences in shops as well as reclaim walkways to ease movement by pedestrians.
KCCA officers removing kiosks from Kampala streets
But the abrupt nature of the operation has left hundreds of thousands of people without a source of livelihood.
KCCA Resident City Commissioner (RCC) Hudu Hussein insists that the evicted traders have been asked to relocate to gazetted markets such as USAFI and Wandegeya markets.
But Kampala City lord Mayor Hajj Elias Lukwago says the spaces are inadequate and cannot absorb the large number of traders.
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