Algerian government vows to bring unregulated trading under control

The country's Walis or Governors have received injunctions from the Interior and Trade Ministers asking them to take the necessary steps to bring unregulated traders, most of them street vendors in big Algerian cities, under control through a set of new incentive measures.

The provincial authorities in conjunction with the municipal officials were requested to work out an action-plan aimed at ensuring the steady relocation of all informal traders to covered markets as early as possible.

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• The relocation operation will be preceded by a general and exhaustive administrative census of all those street vendors and informal traders, who mostly throng the big urban centers including the capital Algiers, for the sake of identification and transparency as part of the smooth implementation of the relevant action plan.
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• After years of vowing to get unregulated traders under control, the Algerian government finally followed through on its threat. In late September, unofficial street markets ceased to exist. Unofficial car parks are next. When General Abdelghani Hamel was named last spring as national security (DGSN) chief, he made it a priority to “clean up” urban areas. Informal street vendors thought the plan was just another campaign to beautify neighbourhoods in Algiers. That was before police began kicking them out and implementing a raft of stringent security measures. The newly uprooted informal sector was in chaos.
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• Young people and police officers initially engaged in confrontations. The situation has since quieted down. Still, the newly uprooted informal sector workers wonder how they will manage. Traders whose open-air stalls in the side streets were shut down have the option of relocating to covered markets, but there are limited spaces. They are also costly: 40,000 dinars (400 euros).

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• According to Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia, it is up to mayors and walis to find solutions for the young people who used to be part of Algeria’s informal economy. Some towns have already set up new premises or blocked off areas in existing local markets for the exclusive use of these young vendors, but this is not enough to meet the high demand.

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• They remember the famous programme launched in 2007 by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika that called for the creation of a hundred sites in each commune across the country. Most of the 150,000 promised sites have been built, but many are in remote locations and thus remain unoccupied.
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• The General Union of Algerian Traders and Artisans (UGCAA) has its own plan to put an end to the chaos in the sector. The UGCAA wants local mayors to create 1,000 neighbourhood markets by next Ramadan due next August.

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• The government clean-up initiative does not end with the street markets. The time has come, according to the interior minister, “to manage the problem of urban traffic and end the anarchy that characterizes parking in cities and which has become a tradition”. “We’re going to create a mechanism to also regulate unofficial car parks,” Interior Minister  Daho Ould Kablia asserted recently.

• For now, however, most citizens welcome the new government remedial measures, “as they will bring an end to the chaos embodied by the anarchical and sprawling black market”.

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