| The reorganization of street vendors begins today. |
The Urban Municipality of Antananarivo will launch a sanitation operation in the city center. The streets of Analakely should be liberated from today.
Will Analakely finally breathe? Its streets and sidewalks should be liberated from today. Street vendors in front of the city hall square, in front of the Hygiene Institute and in front of the Jean Joseph Rabearivelo High School have agreed with the Urban Commune of Antananarivo (CUA) to cease their activities on the premises. In return, they will have a place in the new weekly market located on Andrianampoinimerina Street, between the Itokiana store and the AIDS stele in Andohan’Analakely, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. “There should be no more merchants from Monday (editor’s note: this day). The tri-weekly market will be open from April 26,” said the Director of Markets at the CUA, Marcellin Randrianambinina, last Saturday. This new weekly market will have four hundred places, according to Marcellin Randrianambinina.
According to this official, there should be no heavy-handed hunting during this big clean-up in Analakely. These merchants would leave the streets of their own free will. “This decision has already been discussed with the merchant delegates,” he continues. The merchants, for their part, say that they will respect what was agreed.
Attempts
The CUA has already made several attempts to clean up downtown streets and evict illicit merchants. Each time, there is resistance. Most merchants are refusing, even in the face of lasting solutions such as the opening of the permanent market in Behoririka or that in Anosy. So far, the AUC has not won the battle. The four-story Behoririka market remains empty. The one in Anosy is not full. Merchants continue to squat on the roadways of Behoririka, Soarano, Andravoahangy, Mahamasina and Anosy, under the helpless gaze of the authorities.
If this new solution works, the CUA will have to sacrifice several streets, because it is only a part of the merchants who are affected by the current project, while a thousand street merchants would be identified in the city center. CUA technicians would study other solutions for them.
Miangalya Ralitera
