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The City authorities in Mbarara have notified traders engaging in the weekly markets that weekly flea market in Katete will no longer be accepted.

“People spend money and waste more time moving about instead of spending more time doing productive work ,” Samuel Tayebwa Rwakinanga, the Mbarara City head of revenue, told the Nile Post.

“Katete Friday market was not a market, it was a makeshift selling area and placed on the road and the growing population in the area has made it so hard for people to move when it is a Friday and that congestion is making us look like poor town managers,” Tayebwa said.

According to the Mbarara City mayor Robert Mugabe Kakyebezi, “the Market Act allows the private people to do market and those private people can do market where government has no market.

"Katete has no land for market, and the current market has been on the streets,” Kakyebezi said.

“There are people with land that have entered an agreement with Mbarara City Council to make sure that those people are taken care of in their premises, therefore certifying all the procedures, the private people will run the weekly markets going forward."

Mbarara City speaker Bonny Tashobya highlighted the need to relocate all the weekly markets because the traders lay merchandise on the street posing traffic flow and health challenges.

“A pregnant mother last year lost her baby in an ambulance in Rwebikoona because of the congestion on Wednesdays because the ambulance was stuck in the congestion, same applies to Katete Friday market and Kijungu Saturday market," he said.

The speaker said during the flea markets, roads are covered with merchandise, limiting transport.

"We have partnered with Taga Market to have the Katete Friday market relocate business there,” Tashobya said.

“Markets should be organised, but when you look at our current weekly markets, the foodstuffs are placed on the ground, some pay for carrots, cabbages and they are placed on the ground, yet markets should be healthy and with good sanitation.

Mbarara's weekly market schedule has been Rwebikoona every Wednesday, Kijungu, every Saturday and Katete every Friday.

The place in Kyeera-Nsiikye Nyamitanga Mbarara city south, about 5km from Katete, is another alternative area being considered for relocation of Saturday and Wednesday markets in Kijungu-Rwebikoona, respectively.