By Bida Elly David
Businesswomen over the weekend have raised concerns and blames against Juba City Council for having imposed multiple taxes on their petty businesses in the market on daily routine.
This came following multiple taxes collected by City Council on daily basis by different team moving from time to time within the market scheme.
Sarah Nene, one of the business women said that City Council has not, one day taken an initiative to conduct a market research to inquire how women perform in their businesses as well as find remedies on how to address such challenges.
“City Council has not conducted any survey in the market to know how we run our businesses neither have they asked how much profit we gain as well as the losses we incur on daily basis’’ she said.
Pamela is one of the businesswomen, she added that City Council would have contributed a lot in support of business women in the market through loan grants with a limited period of return but instead they focused on their affairs that exempted solutions to challenges business women faced in the market.
“Instead of advocating for loan grants from partners of goodwill that support women, City Council exempted our challenges from being addressed’’ she added.
However, Josephine Kiden a women market representative from Jebel market pointed out that City Council focused only on daily tax collection and fines not analysing the kind of business women run.
“City Council has been collecting taxes and fines from us without measuring the type of businesses we do. Some of us do petty businesses only to feed our children. If we are taxed, then our children become victims. They should put special consideration to our businesses through tax exemption’’ she pointed
They called on the Mayor, Michael Ladu Allah-Jabu and his team to critically look into the nature of businesses women do in the market and analyze whether it is fair to collect multiple taxes on them.