Steven Chen
About 300 stall owners in the Taman Sri Tebrau market have been instructed to relocate a new temporary open site in Taman Suria some 2km away from it.
The chairman of the Johor Bahru Small Business Association, Chin Yoke Weng, said that the 300 stall owners were shocked, and expressed their dissatisfaction after receiving a notification letter from the Johor Bahru City Council (MBJB) on March 11.
MBJB has given the stall owners six months to vacate the existing market and relocate to the new temporary site in a letter to them, dated Mar 1.
The association urged MBJB to seek an amicable solution to resolve the relocation issue.
He added that the 300 stall owners expressed their concern that the new temporary site in Taman Suria is unsuitable and will adversely affect their daily business.
Chin added that the stall owners felt pressured by MBJB’s arbitrary conduct, saying they had been ‘diarahkan’ (ordered) by the council to leave, although some of them have been doing business in the market for the last 33 years.
“They do not want their business to suffer as a result of relocating to an unsuitable site as many have their financial commitments to fulfil,” he said.
The association would like to counter-propose to the city council to relocate to a more suitable site in Taman Pelangi, which belongs to a state-owned company, which is about a kilometer away from the existing market site as compared to the new site proposed by MBJB which is more than 2km away.
Chin concluded by saying that he hopes the state government and the MBJB will seriously look into the plight of the 300 stall owners.
CJMY
