“No touts, illegal revenue collectors in our market,” says Anambra market leader

By Phil Okose, Onitsha

The caretaker committee of the Ochanja central market in Anambra state has said it will not tolerate touts and illegal revenue collectors, more so because the state governor Charles Soludo has moved towards eradicating them.

The chairman of the caretaker committee of Ochanja market, Bonaventure Muo made this disclosure Wednesday, as he showed off a road project under construction.

It is the second road project that Muo has taken on since the caretaker committee he heads was constituted. 

According to Muo, touts can only be found outside the market and when they are caught inside, are handed over to the police for necessary action. 

He said the activities of wheelbarrow pushers are also being monitored in the market.

“Governor Soludo said that wheelbarrow pushers and others like hawkers, are exempted from taxation and we have before the Governor’s directive, stopped collection of any levy from those exempted from taxation,” Muo stated.

On the road construction, Muo stated that the market leadership embarked on the construction of a third gate road after it completed the second gate, despite petitions written by the opposition to the state government.

The market chairman added that such petitions would not deter the leadership from the infrastructural development of the market.

“Oppositions in the market are incessant petition writers,” Muo said.

“We have completed the 2nd gate and this is the 3rd gate that we are currently working on and the oppositions are still writing petitions against us to the government that the money we are using for the construction of the road projects is from the Internal Generated Revenue (IGR).”

“It is never from IGR but from our personal little donations and good-spirited individual traders who felt that what we are doing is for the betterment of all traders in the market. Even last week they (the opposition) wrote a petition against us that it was money from IGR that we are eating,” he continued.

He accused the opposition of writing the Commissioner for Trade and Commerce earlier and now to the President General of the Anambra State Markets Amalgamated Traders Association (ASMATA), Humphrey Anuna.

Muo maintained that his administration sensitises traders on the need to pay their stall fees and that there has been an improvement in the payment.

The market chairman stated that the market IGR went to the private purse earlier, but now it is forwarded to the state government.

According to the market scribe, Nze Obinna Maduka, what the caretaker committee is currently doing has not been done by successive administrations in the market.

He said that they have told traders that it is money from personal donations and from other traders who approve of the executives’ efforts that are used for constructing the roads.

“The chairman, Chief Muo, wants to show the difference between the present executive and the past leaders by insisting on better welfare for the traders,” Maduka said.

Earlier, a member of the caretaker committee who is also the personal assistant to the chairman, Chukwudi Okafor said that the support from the majority of the traders towards them for the infrastructural development of the market gave him joy.

” Without the determination of Chief Bonaventure Muo, to change the narratives of this market, all these praises from traders would not have been possible,” Okafor stated.