Vendors at Jinja Market are bitter that their new location has one toilet which they share with the taxi park. PHOTO BY DENIS EDEMA .

About 4,000 vendors at Jinja Central Market lack toilet facilities and are worried that they might suffer a severe outbreak of cholera because they have only one pit-latrine which they share with a taxi park.
This is not the first time the vendors are complaining following their transfer from the central business district market to a new site near Kazimingi, as the old market undergoes redevelopment under the Market and Agricultural Trade Improvement Programme.
“The market on its own has no single toilet but we are sharing with the taxi park,” the vendors’ chairperson, Mr Jackson Kabuzi, said.
Early last month, the district municipal chief health inspector, Mr Tom Odoi, told vendors that in less than a week the problem would have been solved but a month later, nothing has changed.
“I just move with my bottle to ease myself because I cannot move for about 300 meters to join the queue at the washrooms,” Mr Mesach Kisame, a dealer in beverages, said.
Mr Ali Akwesiga, a butcher, said he is directly affected by lack of the facility since he sells meat and promised to mobilise vendors to protest next week if no intervention is made.
Ms Susan Akweri, a garbage collector in the area, said sometimes they find faeces piled in polythene bags around the market.
Mr Kabuzi said efforts to ask municipal leaders to address the issue have been fruitless.
Jinja Mayor Mohammed Kezaala, however, asked the vendors to be patient as he looks into the matter.
Construction of the new market is expected to take two years at a cost of Shs24.3m.