-MCC Police Under Spotlight

Business owners, particularly those selling in the streets and on the sidewalks, are frustrated on a daily basis, seeing their goods confiscated by officers of the Monrovia City Corporation or MCC.

The officers parade the streets in pickups every day and night, snatching everything in sight, including bags, slippers, sneakers, shoes and clothing in apparent enforcement of a recent mandate of the Ministry of Commerce that forbids selling in the streets and on the sidewalks.

During a typical scene on Monday, a man whose goods were among other goods confiscated by the officers on Benson Street leaped into a moving MCC pickup, begging for mercy. “Please give me my goods, please give me my goods, I beg you,” he lamented as the pickup loaded with the wares of peddlers drove away.

 A boutique owner on the same Benson Street told this Paper that the City Police officers walked into his boutique and allegedly snatched away his mannequins that he said weren’t in the street or on the sidewalk. Mannequins are false humans being used by boutique owners to display their clothes.

Tension recently erupted between City Police officers and marketers during an MCC raid during which goods worth several thousands of Liberian Dollars were confiscated by the officers in enforcement of the Commerce authorities’ mandate.

Marketers, mainly street peddlers have repeatedly accused the City Police of robbery, alleging that the MCC authorities have severally confiscated their wares, but often fail to account for them even when the required fines are paid, allegations that the authorities have always denied.

The Monrovia City Corporation has also accused the marketers of blocking sidewalks at the discomfort of pedestrians and that because they sell throughout the evening hours, preventing City cleaners   from cleaning the filth they, marketers, make in the streets daily.