KCCA auctions impounded vendors' goods

By Juliet Waiswa                              

KAMPALA Capital City Authority (KCCA) is auctioning goods and products impounded from street vendors in the city.

The assortment of goods are items which were confiscated from several traders in the past six months. The traders some of whom are stilling serving their sentences in Luzira Prison could not collect their items from the KCCA stores despite efforts by the authority to inform the traders.

Anyone found guilty of city vending serves a jail term of six months or subjected to a fine of one million or more and is also cautioned.

KCCA spokesperson Peter Kaujju said that KCCA recently put out a public notice calling all the vendors whose goods were impounded to collect them but no one turned up.

“KCCA got an order from court to allow them to auction the goods which have been in the KCCA court stores for the last six months, we called the owners to come and collect them but they have since not turned up,” Kaujju said.

The items include house hold items, clothes, shoes, handbags, belts, trousers, jackets, saucepans among other items. The collections made out of the auction will go to government coffers.  

Regulation of Trade Order within the Capital City is one of the mandates of KCCA under the KCCA Act 2010.

The enabling provisions of the law on this aspect are; Section 7(1) (m) and schedule 1, Part A Paragraph 3 of the aforementioned Act, Trade Licensing Act CAP 101, and the Local Governments (Kampala City Council) Maintenance of Law and Order Ordinance 2006.

Carrying out any trade or commercial activity in the city must therefore be authorized by the Authority and such activities must be carried out in a designated area. KCCA does not issue any permits for street vending.

Since the establishment of KCCA, they have enforced trade order compliance by among others prosecuting illegal street traders and their buyers.

Kaujju says that the biggest challenges KCCA is still facing in fighting this vice is that the general public in the city continues to support the illegal activities of vendors and hawkers by continuing to buy their merchandise fully aware that KCCA condemns this practice.  

In order to address the above challenge, KCCA recently started jointly prosecuting the street vendors and those who purchase from them for aiding and abetting illegal trade, under the aforesaid provisions.