FCC To Forcefully Remove Squatting Vendors
Pini Bothoko | Monday January 16, 2017 16:21
The site developer has been given a lease agreement to rent the place for over 20 years.
The FCC had given the small scale traders who occupy 55 stalls until December 24, 2016 to have moved from the place to pave way for the development during a meeting at the Civic Centre towards the end of the year.
At the same meeting, the traders agreed to move on December 24, 2016. The vendors have been playing cat-and-mouse with the FCC and efforts to relocate them from the premises hit a snag on numerous occasions.
The tenants have been reluctant to move out claiming that the relocation is an exercise meant to kill their businesses, hence accusing the FCC of depriving them of their livelihood.
Last year October, the FCC ordered them to have moved within two weeks but they wrote a letter to the council requesting that their relocation be postponed in order for them to clear debts owed to their service providers.
They also claimed that the extension would grant them adequate time to enable them to alert their clients of their new business premises.
In the past, the FCC made efforts to relocate them to other tuck shops within the city but they refused stating that the areas will not be
viable because they are far from their customers who are mostly in the city centre.
Vendors also cited lack of a suitable location as the reason for their reluctance to move.
Reached for an interview, FCC’s Deputy Town Clerk Robert Letlole said the council considers the tenants as squatters because their agreement with FCC ended last month.
“We had agreed with them to have moved by December 24 last year. We now consider them as squatters and they will be forcefully evicted by the site developer sometimes this week,” said Letlole.
Letlole said there is no way they can help them because efforts have been made several times in the past to relocate them to other areas, but they refused.
He said what makes the matter worse is that the majority of the tenants have not been paying their rentals within the stipulated period.
The tenants have been engaged and informed about the pending relocation since 2004.
“This week we (council) will be handing over the site over to the developer and it will be up to him to take any action against them because we have long notified them about the relocation,” said Letlole.
He said they are not expecting the eviction to come as a surprise to the vendors because they have been aware of this development for a very long time.
“In the past we gave them alternative stalls at the bus rank as well as at Blue Town location but only a few relocated but the majority of
them remained behind,” said Letlole. Letlole said the development will transform the Central Business District (CBD) into a more vibrant place than it was.