Maï Ndombe: A new public market site at the port of Inongo

Inongo,  April 15^th, 2025 (CPA) – A public market has been installed in the vicinity of the port of Inongo, capital of the Maï-Ndombe province in the south-west of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in accordance with the navigation code, the river commissioner announced on Tuesday in an interview with the CPA.  ‘I have just made a new market site at the port in accordance with the navigation code, as an emergency measure to avoid accidents at the port. It is strictly forbidden to set up a public market at the port where explosive products such as petrol, oil, diesel and the like are brought out. There must be no market. (…) There is a port that does not have a loading and unloading quay, whereas the role of the port services is to ensure loading and unloading, and the embarkation and disembarkation of passengers’, declared David Kalemba, Inongo’s river commissioner. Mr Kalemba explained that he had moved the women vendors into the area reserved for port activities, which he said was part of a purely security-based framework in which the border police and the General Directorate of Migration should automatically identify anyone entering or leaving the town of Inongo. This will make it possible to have a trail where he has left to serve as a queue for loading and unloading.  ‘I made this trip to bring some order to the port and to show that our town has a beautiful port. I’ve tried to satisfy the vendors, the mothers who come to sell their bags of cassava chips, maize, embers and so on, and I’ve left the quay here for loading and unloading. This will enable us to identify who is entering and leaving the town of Inongo’, he added.  When there’s a market,’ the river commissioner pointed out, ’there’s a lot of camouflage, and we can’t distinguish between those who are travelling and those who are entering the port’.