Salihorsk: individual entrepreneurs refuse to pay rent
The administration of the two markets of Salihorsk is in panic. The overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs refuse to sign agreements with new rent costs. Instead they send to state organs collective complaints and present to the markets’ administration collective complaints.
The reason for the mass revolt of individual entrepreneurs is that since 1 January the administration of the markets, following the wish of the local authorities, increased the tax rate from 5 to 7 Euros per square meter.
‘We know that the head of the state adopted a rigid tax rate,’ says individual entrepreneur Tatsiana Kuchynskaya. ‘These rates must not exceed 5 Euros per square meter for such markets as ours. When the head of Kastrychnitski market Lidziya Zhukavets declared that we would have to pay 7 Euros we came to the head of the district executive committee and reminded him about the appropriate presidential decree, but he ignored what we said to him.’
The head of Salihorsk district executive committee Alexander Rymasheuski said that the executive committee had to pay the credit for building of the market and the bank raised the percent. In other conditions the entrepreneurs could put up with such an explanation, but:
‘There is no water course at the market ground. There’s either mud or ice between the market pavilions. We bought the pavilions at our own expense. We cannot understand where are the huge sums of money, to which the head of the district executive committee refers as to means spent on building of the market,’ says individual entrepreneur Sviatlana Chakur.
In their letters to the presidential administration and the State Control Committee the entrepreneurs demand to hold a check-up of the expenditures on construction of the Kastrychnitski market and the financial check-up of the markets. They also call one of the reasons for large expenditures made by the administration of the markets – the personnel of the market has been artificially increased – in fact, many of them had nothing to do.
