Police raid and burn 5-Mile Tulait market

By JACOB POK
MORE than 20 stalls belonging to informal sector vendors at the 5-Mile Tulait market, National Capital District, were destroyed and burnt by police during an evening raid yesterday.
Armed policeman raided the 24-hour market at around 7pm and forced the vendors to vacate the area as they were trading on the roadside and causing inconvenience to traffic.
Many vendors and residents involved in the informal trading were devastated by the police actions. Many said they were taken by surprise and lost many of their goods.
Vendor Sinaku Malingi claimed the police had verbally advised them on Tuesday afternoon to vacate the area.
They did not receive anything in writing.
“The police just came and destroyed all the stalls and even took our goods and money when we fled,” Malingi said.
Another woman said her goods and money, including her cooler in which she stored drinks, were taken by police during the raid.
“It is not proper for police to conduct such raids in the night as we are not criminals,” she said.
Robert David claimed that Gordon police and NCDC officials were not aware of the raid when they contacted them.
He said they did not know who gave police the orders to carry out the raid.
The vendors said they would consult the NCD governor today to discuss the matter.
They claimed each stall contained goods such as cigarettes, betelnuts, mobile phone cards, soft drinks and other store goods worth more than K4,000.
Police chiefs in NCD could not be reached for comments last night.