Marketers warn gov’t

The head of Liberia’s Marketers Association or LMA, Madam Lusu Sloan, has warned government to “be careful” not to transfer the wrong street sellers to the newly unveiled Omega Market and leave Redlight in its current congested situation.

Commenting at the Omega Market site unveiled by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf on Friday, May 1, 2015 in Paynesville, Madam Sloan told the President that due to lack of jobs, degree holders are mixed with street sellers sitting on sidewalks besides other sellers already occupying market buildings in the densely populated Redlight Market.

In what may involve working along with the LMA, Madam Sloan suggested that government first study how people will be transferred from Redlight to avoid a mistake of taking sellers from the sidewalks to the Omega Market only to see the next day that Redlight still remains congested because the right marketers were not transferred.

In honor of President Sirleaf, the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity mobilized some million dollars to do a market project behind the Cocoa-Cola Bottling Company in Paynesville where the Omega Tower was demolished years back to transfer marketers from Redlight.

The Fraternity group broke grounds for the Omega Market project on President Sirleaf’s 75th birthday day, 29 October 2013; and it seeks to avoid traffic congestion in Redlight, provide access to clean water sources, clinics, among others.

Unveiling the project, President Sirleaf said the Omega Market facility was an elevation of marketers from the streets and ground to tables in market building.

To move people from Redlight to the Omega Market, President Sirleaf says ‘you have to move the trucks from there’ and arrange to have truck service at the Omega Market site.

President Sirleaf said there is so much that can be done at the Omega Market facility in addition to selling, citing mortgaged housing units, warehousing, schooling, and running of clinics there to serve residents and marketers and their children.

She hoped that the project could inspire people and go beyond initial contributions they made and make extra effort in terms of helping in whatever way they can to move the project forward.

In an overview of the project, Madam Clavenda Bright Parker said their contractor – LRDC – (Liberia Reconstruction and Development Company) told them that the project could finish in three months if all resources required were available.

She said the difficult part of the project, which was building the foundation in the swampy areas, is finished and flat top has been constructed.

She said the ground was ‘very swampy’ and over hundred tons of steels thousands of bags of cement loads of dirt, among others were used there.

The bigger structure with flattop unveiled over the weekend will enable the entire facility to host about 2,000 market venders, far more than the first four market buildings constructed that host at least 400 venders.

By Winston W. Parley