By Joshua Kato
When you move around most of Uganda’s main markets, you are met with mud, dirt and all kinds of nauseating garbage. But within this garbage, hundreds of traders are selling their products.
For example, it is common to see tomatoes, Irish potatoes, root crops or even mangoes laid on bare ground for sale to customers.
Because of the heavy rains that are ravaging the country, these spaces in which traders who do not have permanent stalls operate have turned shoddy.
But because these traders do not have any alternative place to sell their products from, they have continued to put them on bare, shoddy, unhygienic ground.
Their prices are also relatively low compared to traders who have stalls, which means that many customers go for them irrespective of the unhygienic conditions.
Nonetheless, it is the responsibility of the market authorities to ensure that whatever is sold in these markets is good for human consumption.
Uganda has got two rainy seasons and in most cases, the floors of these markets become shoddy.
Market authorities should therefore plan in advance to help the traders without stalls prepare for the rainy seasons. Simple tables can actually sort them out.
