SIBU, March 2: The Covid-19 pandemic has severely battered business everywhere including Sibu Central market where the livelihood of some 1,200 traders is adversely affected.
Ever since the implementation of movement control order (MCO 1.0) in Sibu in January, which was further extended to February and March, the income of 1,200-odd traders has declined following less customers patronised the market.
Sibu Municipal Council was forced to take drastic action by closing down the market for more than three weeks from Feb 8 after 47 new cases were recorded as a drastic measure to curb the spread of the disease.
The market was reopened on March 1 but the damage was already done.
A hawker selling dressed chicken when approached this morning expected that business to be worse than MCO 1.0.
“I start trading this morning and will be doing so on an alternate day basis as per arrangement by the council. As I have anticipated very low number of patrons, I did not bring many chickens for sale and the sale now is probably less than half of that of a normal day,” said the hawker who preferred to be known as Ling.
This week, Ling is trading on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday while the following week, it will be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Ling said her chickens are now only sold to those who made pre-orders.
“I cannot bring a lot of chickens here or else I will end up with a lot of them unsold. So customers have to place their order first,” she said.
A kuih seller, who preferred to remain anonymous, said despite the low turnout of customers at the market, she continued to operate her stall.
“During the three weeks closure, I have no income at all. If I take leave now, I also have nothing to do at home,” she said.
Meanwhile, Sibu Municipal Council chairman Clarence Ting said only 144 stallholders out of 1,116 (including Tamu and food hawkers) opened for business on Monday.
Ting said most of the stalls suffered from slow business.
“SMC is controlling the number of people entering at every entrance to contain the spread of Covid-19,” he said. — DayakDaily
