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Kutaisi Authority Fights against Street Traders

May 17, 2007

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“Kutaisi local Authority cannot stand street traders. It is the only explanation of their attitude towards us. We are standing in the rain, wind, heat and try to sell a little green to earn our living and keep our families. But they do their best to cut our last source to survive.  We do not know how long we will endure the situation,” said street traders in the area of Kutaisi Central Market.

These people have been harassed by the representatives of the Supervision Department within the Kutaisi Administration Board that has caused reasonable damage for them. Although the Supervision Department has punished the disobedient street traders several times, the traders are not going to give in. The traders have been taking their sacks empty home recently.

“Two days ago three men came up to me and grabbed my sacks without asking anything to me. They called back, they would teach us good lessons because we could not understand normal warning before. They threw away the sacks of other traders. Yesterday, a mother of three children chased them to the market-gate to return her sacks back in vain. What a hell it is…Cannot they speak with us and assist us properly; let them find some alternative place for us and we will not be under threat all the time?” said Marina Giorgobiani. She and her co-traders demand alternative places in the central market. Unless their demands are followed they are not going to give in.

The Local Authority started to make order in the market territory months ago. Representatives of the Administrative Supervision Department and patrol policemen dismantled the stalls of the traders who had arrived from various districts of Imereti Region.

Several days ago the Kutaisi Municipality enacted a special resolution according to which disobedient street traders must be severely punished. “This question was impossible to settle up to now, thus the local authority found the way out and decided to ban the street trading once and forever. However, there are products that can be sold in the street but only in certain places. These are: newspapers, ice-cream, soft drinks etc. In other occasions, the traders will be seized of their product and it would be given to the House of Disabled People or to the Boarding –School in the village of Brotseula. We carried out similar operation several times and the people got very irritated. Supervision Department offers them alternative places in the central market where they can sell their products,” said Zaza Suladze, the head of the Kutaisi Supervision Department.

As it has become clear, the offered places do not exist in fact, because the traders have been demanding alternative places for more than a year in vain. These people want to create equal conditions for all traders-street traders and those who sell products in the market.

Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi

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