By Chuks Onuoha
Traders in Aba, the commercial nerve centre of Abia State, have cried out over what they described as imposition of levies and tariffs by various marketing authorities in the town.
They have expressed fear that the new tariffs and levies imposed on traders, if not withdrawn or reviewed, were capable of throwing them out of business.
They called on the state government to look into the issue with a view to ameliorating the situation.
Saturday Sun learnt from some of the traders who spoke anonymously from the various markets visited in the town that the marketing authorities asked them to pay N18, 000 each as annual levies for all the shops in the town.
Chairman of Ariaria International Market, Frank Moses said the markets authorities and leaderships were not the ones that prescribed the payment of the levies, noting that they were introduced by the Board of Internal Revenue in the state.
He said what the Board did was to harmonise all the levies traders were paying before, for easy collection and avoidance of leakages.
He explained that the job of the market leaders was to carry out the directives of the board and sensitize the traders to abide by them. Some of the traders lamented that the new levies might push them out of business. They called on the state government to urgently look into the matter and save their businesses from collapse.