The Minister of Trade, Industry, and Cooperatives Amelia Kyambadde has warned traders opening arcades that they risk being arrested.
Kyambadde was speaking on Wednesday afternoon at the Uganda media center -UMC to make clarifications on the difference between an arcade and a shopping mall.
President Museveni during a televised broadcast on Monday night directed only shopping malls and not arcades resume operations by June 4th, 2020 provided they observe social distancing among other standard operating procedures-SOPs.
Kyambadde explained that shopping malls were allowed to open because they don’t pull crowds and shops have few attendants compared to Arcades.
“Malls have ample parking space, while arcades are congested and lack convenient parking space. Malls have two major entrances and one emergency exit, but arcades have multiple entries and exits,”Kyambadde explained in the statement.
She added: “The malls have spacious outlets of over 40Sqm with at least one occupant per outlet, while arcades are relatively smaller like at 20sqm with multiple occupants.”
Whereas it is easy to control traffic within malls, the Minister add, it is on the other hands difficult to do so within arcades due to their crowded nature
She said Malls mostly have facilities that offer essential services, like; banking, pharmacies, supermarkets, and sometimes office space, arcades are strictly for general merchandise.
The minister named facilities that qualify in the malls category including Acacia, Village Mall, Imperial Mall, Metroplex Mall, Oasis, Garden City, Kingdom Kampala, Shoprite Lugogo, Victorial Mall and Marigold Mall in Ntinda.
While some of the arcades she Kyambadde named include Nabukeera, Nalubwama, Kizito, Ggaliraya, Mutaasa Kafeero, Energy Centre, Qualicel and Arua park as arcades.
“General merchandise shops outside malls and arcades can open for operation as well, provided they consider the provided standard operating procedures,” the minister said.
This means all traders downtown Kampala are still on lockdown.
