Selay Marius Kouassi, Abidjan
9 December 2011
Late August this year the Ivorian government launched a massive clean-up operation in the capital Abidjan in an attempt to improve the public health situation.
Bulldozers are clearing the public space that was illegally occupied by small businesses and even homes. It’s a solution that appears as crooked as the problem it was intended to solve.
In the past few weeks, kiosks, small businesses, homes, fences and ‘maquis’ (open-air bars), that had been illegally established on pavements and other public spaces in Abidjan, have been systematically demolished by government bulldozers. For many years, small businesses owners, mostly women, have run their businesses from the pavements of Abidjan, trying to earn an income to provide for their families.
In most cases, the occupants had been paying taxes to the municipality. As a result, the so-called informal activity they were involved in, as well as the space they informally occupied, started to appear ‘formal’ to both them as well as the tax collectors.
Big scam
The demolition of the half-illegal structures and the silence of the municipality, that built most of them, sparked anger amongst the occupants. Christophe Akadjé, the owner of a demolished maquis, is bitter.
“We were occupying areas provided by the municipality and we’ve been paying rent every month, for years. Now another government body is evicting us and the municipality is not doing anything to oppose it or protect us. It looks like a big scam!”
For Amélie N’Goran, the owner of a small business whose head office was destroyed, the timing is inopportune. “This is not the best time for a clean-up operation. We are all emerging from a crisis. The government should have postponed this operation to give the owners time to move their businesses elsewhere.”
Unemployment on the horizon
Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast, is slowly regaining its glitter of the golden days. However, this huge ‘gentrification scheme’, which is aimed at improving the public health situation, will certainly create other problems: soaring unemployment rates and, indirectly, more young children dropping out of school.
“I had about twenty teenagers working for me, most them university graduates who could find no better job than waitressing in my maquis,” says Ismaël Camara. “They’ve been jobless since the devastation of my establishment. I am now wondering what will become of the families they were providing for.”
Most of the business owners who were occupying public spaces are women whose husbands are either unemployed or have left the marital home – something that happens a lot in Ivory Coast or women raising their children on their own. Valérie Adou, a single mother, is at wit’s end.
“The money I earned in the hair salon allowed me to send two daughters to school and look after my elder son, who is unemployed. But it has been demolished. I have no place else to set up my business and look after my family,” she says.
No illusions
The issue of compensation and relocation is not on the governmental agenda and will probably not be any time soon. Meanwhile, the clean-up operation continues, to the great displeasure of its victims.
Sure, the operation contributes to the eradication of diseases like cholera. But the problem of massive unemployment that the operation has already created is cause for great concern.
AllAfrica – All the Time