THE Ndola City Council says the fire at Kapalala Market could have been a result of negligence on the part of some traders who spend nights there.

Ndola mayor Amon Chisenga ruled out arson but said it was up to police to investigate.

“For now, we rule out any possibility of arson. However, we leave it to the police for investigations. We want to establish if it was negligence from the traders because we hear some people sleep in the market. So we will wait for the investigations to be concluded. We are not going to speculate,” said Chisenga.

“Yet again another market is gutted and it is unfortunate that we have this issue at hand. We do not want to speculate now that it could be an act of arson, especially that the state of threatened emergency is still in force. We pray that the fire was as a result of negligence of our marketer.”