JEDDAH, 25 January 2008 — Jeddah’s Bani Malik district, south of the Palestine Road, has inherited a growing unregulated street vegetable market, which residents say has resulted in traffic congestion and vermin-feeding organic garbage.
“Every day I wake up and have a fight with the dealers who sometimes use the hood of my car as a table to exhibit their goods,” said local resident Riza Patel.
According to area residents, the market sprouted up three years ago with about five stalls; today there are dozens of them selling fruit and vegetables.
“The stalls are there from sunrise to sunset and have never been scrutinized by municipal authorities even though we have reported the situation many times,” said Omar Al-Saqi, a local resident.
On Wednesday, Arab News visited the market and found a bustling informal street market manned mostly by Asian immigrants. More than once a policeman in a patrol car passed near the market nonplussed by the bottlenecking caused by the unlicensed street vendors.
Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, head of the municipality’s media department, said municipal inspectors frequently conduct raids around the city to crack down on illegal businesses and random stalls.
“Each municipality branch is responsible for monitoring its own area,” he said, adding that organized raids are in the works.
Patel said he’s complained about the street vendors, who he said have caused damages to cars parked in the neighborhood with scratches from their carts. Traffic congestion has gotten worse and when the stalls leave for the day rotten produce and cardboard boxes littler the neighborhood.
“We’ve received an infestation of insects in the area because of those illegal dealers who also pollute the area with the smell of rotten fruit and vegetables,” he said.
Saeed Hamdan, a Yemeni resident and shopkeeper in the area, said that in the beginning people were not bothered by the stalls that were bringing locally grown fresh vegetables to the area. Hamdan wondered if the inaction of the municipality was the result of some shady deal.
“Maybe they have some kind of agreement going on here with the municipality monitoring personnel,” he said. In a previous interview with Arab News, a high official with the municipality who requested anonymity said that the low salaries of municipal inspectors could make them vulnerable to bribes. He said that the municipality was taking this issue seriously and was studying the possibilities of increasing the salaries of field officials.
