Yesterday, on the one-year anniversary of Yangon’s Mingalar Market fire that destroyed more than 1500 shops, shopowners held a demonstration in front of the YCDC office downtown demanding that the government be more forthcoming and transparent about their plans to rebuild the market.
“We want to know how and when the market will be rebuilt. We’ll be satisfied if they can give us an exact date,” one demonstrator told Kumudra.
Shopowners expressed their need for the market to be rebuilt as quickly as possible as their current ‘temporary’ situations were severely hurting their businesses and livelihoods.
Following the fire, authorities had moved some of the shopowners to the top floor of Shwe Mingalar Market. However, most shopowners who were relocated there have complained that business has declined because few customers want to walk all the way up to the fifth floor.
Others are renting space on the lower levels of Shwe Mingalar Market, but at approximately MMK4-5 million per stall, some owners have had to split the costs and share a singular location. To make matters worse, they have to rent the spaces from the Shwe Mingalar shopkeepers who originally owned them, meaning that some renters have taken advantage of the traders’ situation and arbitrarily raised rent prices.
Demonstrates related that repeated attempts at getting a direct answer from various authorities in regards to the state of the new market have proved futile, finally prompting them to publicly protest.
They also warned that they plan on holding another demonstration should the government fail to give them any updates following this one.
