{"id":6121,"date":"2017-06-20T15:01:53","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T15:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/?p=6121"},"modified":"2017-06-20T15:01:53","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T15:01:53","slug":"increase-in-rent-causes-bujumbura-city-market-traders-to-close-shops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/increase-in-rent-causes-bujumbura-city-market-traders-to-close-shops\/","title":{"rendered":"Increase in rent causes Bujumbura City Market traders to close shops"},"content":{"rendered":"

Traders of about 30 shops at the Bujumbura City Market \u2013BCM have suspended their daily activities due to the increase in rent, this morning 20 June. The market\u2019s management accuses them of illegally occupying its empty spaces.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Some

Some shops at BMC have closed<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t understand why we should pay additional rent\u201d, says angrily a trader, met at Bujumbura City Market in Ngagara neighborhood in north Bujumbura. He says BCM General Manager has increased BIF 150 thousand on each shop that already paid BIF 250 thousand for only selling their goods on wooden stands. \u201cThe extended stands are used to display samples of our goods\u201d, says another trader. She says they do not agree with the measure given that nothing has changed on the building to raise rent money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe BCM management doesn\u2019t consider other taxes we pay to Burundi Revenue Authority, Bujumbura City Council and the guards while customers come in twos and threes\u201d, she says. Apart from the 31 closed shops, traders of the surrounding mini-shops have also suspended their activities. \u201cWe fear that this measure would also affect our mini-shops. We must support our colleagues\u201d, says a woman who also has shut her mini-shop.<\/p>\n

Sion Nikobiri, General Manager of Bujumbura City Market, says the market\u2019s administration has decided to remove all extended stands on the shops because the traders have tried to illegally occupy the empty spaces of the market. \u201cIf the situation remains so, this may cause an incident\u201d, he says. He adds that the traders have arrogated to themselves the right to extend their stands up to the gutters. \u201cWe cannot allow this. They have one choice. They either must remove all the extended stands or pay for those places\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n

The BMC management and traders have held a meeting and agreed on some points. Some suggested the payment of the sum and then continue with their daily activities while others refused because they do not have sufficient goods to extend outside the shops.<\/p>\n

Sion Nikobiri has given them three days to think over which choice to make between the two. \u201cWe let them continue to work, but after three days, we will announce the final decision\u201d, says Nikobiri.<\/p>\n

Bujumbura City Market, one of the biggest markets of the Burundian capital Bujumbura, is occupied by the majority of traders from the former Bujumbura Central Market, burnt on 27 January 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Traders of about 30 shops at the Bujumbura City Market \u2013BCM have suspended their daily activities due to the increase in rent, this morning 20 June. The market\u2019s management accuses them of illegally occupying its empty spaces. \u201cWe don\u2019t understand why we should pay additional rent\u201d, says angrily a trader, met at Bujumbura City Market […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,670],"tags":[108,1129],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6124,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6121\/revisions\/6124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}