OMUTHIYA – Plans by the Tsumeb municipality to relocate scores of vendors who have flooded the streets and house them in a more conducive business environment, will come to fruition as the mooted SME market is to be constructed at the copper-mining town.
Funds to construct the new market were availed by Dundee Precious Metals through its community trust, which has pledged N$1.2 million towards this development.
Tsumeb CEO Alfeus Benjamin revealed this to New Era newspaper upon inquiry.
The project has been in the pipeline for some time.
Over the years the municipality and vendors have been clashing and the council has been finding it difficult to control them as there is no formal market to trade from, although there is one under the Namibia Development Corporation, but they refused to sell from there. The reason being that the market is not strategically located, as they rely on passer-by customers. Their preferred spots were the filling stations and along the main road.
“This project will now go ahead and construction will commence soon, although it will be a smaller version of the initially planned project. Previously there was an agreement with various farmers around Tsumeb who had committed to put funds together towards the project and create a big fresh hub whereby traders were also involved, but with the current economic challenges farmers withdrew their funding,” elaborated the CEO.