UGANDA, Kampala | Real Muloodi News | Traders working from Mukwano Arcade in downtown Kampala closed shop on Tuesday, August 24th, to protest against the demands from their landlord that they pay rent for July.
The traders protested, saying they did not do business in July while the nation was in lockdown because of the rise in Covid-19 cases during the second wave. The traders further stated that it was not their decision to shut down their business. They were following a government mandate to shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a speech broadcast live to the nation on July 7th, Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni imposed a 42-day lockdown across the country to stem the escalation of COVID-19 infections in Uganda.
The traders demanded a waiver of their rent for their shops in the arcade. Other shopping arcades in the area expressed the same opinion.
The Chairperson of the United Arcades Trader’s Entrepreneurs Association, Emmanuel Ntale, said, “We even came up with a solution that landlords should allow us to only pay for June, even though we only worked half a month and pay the August rent while the landlords forfeit July, but they couldn’t.”
A meeting organised by the police between the Mukwano Arcade management and representatives of the traders offered the compromise that pays half of July’s rent first, said Sheikh Muhammed Sulaiman, a representative of the traders. Sulaiman said that after the meeting, Mukwano Arcade Management proposed that the traders pay the other half of the rent due in five months.
However, some of the traders were not satisfied with this compromise.
Ntale said the closed-shop protest might spread as traders from other arcades which did not waive rent join in.
There are 178 shopping arcades in Kampala city, and of these, Mukwano Arcade was one of 146 that reopened after the pandemic lockdown in July. Mukwano reopened after it met SOP compliant by inspectors.
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