The TPDC chairman ordered that the shopping area at the center of Ye town be closed and dismantled on March 22nd of this year, claiming that the shops obstructed view from the windows of the TPDC office, also located in the center at the intersection of the town’s 2 main roads.
Shop owners claim that they have not been pointed to a new location for their businesses, nor offered any form of compensation for the move. Shop owners have been ordered to move their shop rooms by the end of March.
Just as significantly, the chairman has issued at mandate forbidding any future construction of commercial outlets near the town’s central intersection, effectively capping commercial growth within Ye town proper.
“The chairman said, these shops are blocking the TPDC office and he cannot see outside, that why he has ordered the owners to destroy them all [the shops]. The shops have been located here for long time. And also he [the chairman] said that he does not want to see any more shops opening [in the town center]” said a shop owner.
He added that shops in the town’s center have been closed since the issuance of the March 22nd orders, as their owners fear that continuing to do business before the forced exodus will provoke the chairman into acting even more harshly against them.
According to sources in Ye town, the very area that the Ye TPDC chairman has reclaimed is a section of Ye town specifically fingered for commercial development 9 years ago, when the Ye division of the Ministry of Developmental Affairs dismantled the formerly ramshackle groups of shops that previously did business in the area; the ministry built a series of streamlined, uniform shop rooms in town’s center, and sold them to interested businessmen.
The threatened shop owners that IMNA spoke to explained that they fear that the TPDC chairman will use his recently issued commands as a means of extorting money from business owners.
“I think, the chairman will make shop owners pay money to him in order to prevent him from destroying their shops, because the chairman wants a new truck for himself, a second town center shop owner told IMNA.
Shop owners informed IMNA that while they would like to report the chairman’s orders and issue a formal complaint to an upper-level government department, they are not entirely certain if the orders came directly from the Ye TPDC chairman, or from a higher level, and they are uncertain about which ministry or government office would be appropriate, or safe, to submit a claim to.
The shops the TPDC chairman objects to form a shopping center of over 20 shop rooms – tea shops, snooker shops, and restaurants. According to a third shop owner the central location of the shopping center, near the Ye Township hall and on the town’s main cross streets, makes it a very popular area for Ye shoppers.
“if the shops have to be destroyed, I and other people like me, will have problems with our families, because we are relying on these shops for our incomes” he added.
