Le250 Fine or Jail Term for Arrested Traders

By Foday Jalloh

The Freetown City Council (FCC) is the local government body in Sierra Leone, that is responsible to upkeep local affairs of the capital city Freetown.

Many functions have been devolved to the FCC such as taking care of the markets, cleaning the city, managing the day-to-day activities of traders such as providing spaces for traders to display and sell their wares, collect market dues among other responsibilities.

However, traders are complaining that the Mayor Yvonne Aki Sawyer FCC administration is not doing much to transform the state of traders in Freetown. They say the FCC is daily chasing them and collecting money from them which they do not issue receipts to indicate that the monies they collect from the traders are going into the correct coffers and not into private pockets and purses.

They further complain that as retailers, they find it extremely to do business, and are therefore calling on the FCC to provide proper market places where they can do their business and avoid displaying their wares on the streets.

Over two hundred petty traders were arrested during an operation conducted by the FCC with support from the Sierra Leone Police and the Office of National Security (ONS).

According to the Local Unit Commander for the Freetown Metropolitan Police, Superintendent Rashid, he noted that the operation is code-named “Operation Free Flow” and aims to clear traders from off twenty-one streets in the Central Business District. He added that any trader caught along these twenty-one streets would be arrested and fined not less than two hundred and fifty Leones or an alternative jail term.