Jordan News

Can the Greater Amman Municipality regain the street’s confidence in it, after citizens circulated about the “rude” and “stubborn” behavior of its employees against the vendors of stalls during the last month of Ramadan, and their smashing of a watermelon arbour in the Khraibet Al-Souq area, and the destruction of a “vegetable and fruit cart” in Central Market?

Amman Mayor Yousef Al-Shawarbeh hastened to contain these crises, by announcing the dissolution of the random sales control department, and the adoption of new foundations to control street sales, assigning this task to district managers in cooperation with administrative rulers.

In the “Al-Arabiya” incident, he relieved the director of the central market of his duties and formed an investigation committee, before Prime Minister Dr. Bishr Al-Khasawneh visited the secretariat, stressing that “some aspects of removing violations are unacceptable,” and then the National Center for Human Rights issued a statement, criticizing it.” The actions of the secretariat with the stands,” and in parallel; The Municipality announced its intention to establish 3 new open-air markets in Amman, and to allocate 16 empty plots of land, available to mobile sellers free of charge on a daily basis.

The city’s deputy director for regions and environment affairs, Hussam Al-Najdawi, confirmed to “Al-Ghad” that the secretariat was never an opponent of the “citizens,” noting that “all what was issued and issued by the employees is individual behavior, which does not constitute the institution’s policy in dealing with them.”

He pointed out that the new secretariat’s procedures to solve the problem of the stalls come in the context of addressing the problem, saying, “We hope that it will serve the purpose for which it will be established, to reduce the phenomenon that has expanded greatly in the capital,” noting the need for everyone to cooperate to reach a “solution of the stalls.” In a manner that preserves the interests of all parties without overpowering one party over another.

Al-Najdawi attributed the reasons for its recent spread to the repercussions of the Corona pandemic and its economic and social effects, as well as the high unemployment.

The Consumer Protection Association welcomed the secretariat’s measures to resolve the “stands”; She said in a statement issued by her, “This would organize its work, so that some sellers used sidewalks and places not designated for sale, as a place to display their products, which lack the most basic conditions of public health.”

The association explained, “This problem has caused, over the past years, crises and clashes between the secretariat’s cadres and vendors, due to negative practices and attacks that were taking place on the sidewalks designated for pedestrians.”
She added that random sales were carried out without controls or instructions that would preserve consumer rights, especially since some of the goods offered did not take into account the conditions of public health, did not meet the approved specifications and standards, and posed a real threat and danger to the health and safety of citizens.

Director of the Phenix Center for Economic and Informatics Studies, Ahmed Awad, told Al-Ghad, “The way in which the Municipality’s quarry dealt with unorganized workers, such as owners of stalls and mobile carts, indicates that there is no specific policy to deal with this sector, which is expanding daily due to the expansion of poverty and unemployment. And this is surprising, since the life of the trust is more than a hundred years.”

Awad pointed out that “this matter has a great disadvantage represented in the way the secretariat manages its basic tasks,” noting that “workers and female workers in unorganized economic activities are an essential part of the economy component, which the poor class resorts to in order to enable them to meet their needs and the needs of their families. The secretariat is required to organize their work as an added value to the popular economy in Oman.”

Awad explained that the administration of the Municipality must possess a high sensitivity to the economic and social transformations in the city, and the resulting necessary economic activities in order to facilitate the work of these activities, as long as the organized economic activities do not grow sufficiently to generate a decent opportunity for citizens.

Awad pointed to the need to rehabilitate the workers in these activities, so that the damages resulting from their randomness are minimized, and the benefit from them is maximized for the employees themselves, the secretariat and its cadres.