Rosignol vendors who had been occupying an “illegal” market along the railway embankment had their stalls dismantled around 2 pm on Wednesday after relocating there one week ago.
A $60M structure was established nearby a few years ago for the vendors to use but they only occupied it on Saturdays.
The vendors were forcibly removed about three months ago to ply their trade in the new structure on a daily basis but had returned to “catch we hands for the holidays because we don’t do business in the new market.”
They told Stabroek News that together they had spent almost $30,000 on a few loads of reef-sand to re-establish their old selling spots.
However, Regional Chairman Harrinarine Baldeo and Chairman of the Rosignol/Zeelust Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) Beerkarran Singh who oversaw the demolition exercise insisted that vending could not take place at that location.
Baldeo told this newspaper, “This is the third time that the vendors are being moved because this is not the market. When they were removed [recently] we see the kind of garbage and stench that was there. We would not tolerate it.”
He mentioned that the exercise “takes a lot time and energy but if we have to break we have to break.”
Piles of garbage were scattered alongside the market after the previous demolition but the vendors denied dumping anything there and said residents from other areas had been responsible for the rubbish.
A fish vendor, Raywattie Budhram told Stabroek News that since she moved to the new market she had suffered losses and had incurred a lot of debt. She said most of the fish spoilt daily and she had to dump it.
The woman’s daughter, Devi Singh also a fish vendor said, “I am not making any profit and I have to go into my pocket to pay for fish; I don’t make enough money to turn-over in the business.”
She said she had three children to send to school and could not afford to do so because “I keep losing all the time. The people don’t go there [new market] to buy; they say it too far and they rather stay home and buy chicken.”
A few vegetable vendors agreed: “Every day we throwing away three to four buckets of greens and the farmers looking fuh dem money. Most of us are single mothers …”
Police officers from the Blairmont and Fort Wellington stations were present to ensure that the exercise was incident free.
Workers from other NDCs demolished the stalls while a backhoe belonging to the NDC dug out the reef-sand. The sand and the broken stalls were dumped on the NDC’s trailer and taken away even as the vendors hurled remarks at Baldeo and Singh.
At one point some of the vendors attempted to stand on a heap of sand to prevent the backhoe from removing it, and had to be restrained by the police.
Meanwhile a few residents who were in favour of the dismantling process said they wanted the street to be cleared. “If they block up the street and anything happen to my mother and father how they would pass?” one woman asked.
Residents said too that a few years ago a house was on fire and when the fire tender arrived it could not pass through the street. She said that by the time it drove around to another street the house had already burnt.
They told this newspaper that the vendors also left the area very messy and “we couldn’t pass here in peace because the place so stink.”
The old market is located close to two pharmacies, two banks, a Western Union branch as well as other business places. Vendors said that when residents go to those places to conduct business they had to “pay a next passage to come to the other market, so they don’t come.”
The vendors said too that they paid a rent for the new market but yet it was not cleaned properly and it stank.
Beerkarran said that the new market had “three cleaners working split-shift from 7 am to 10 am and from 1 pm to 5 pm.”
However, because of the mess the vendors made during the major market on Saturdays it cleaning could not be finished on time. He also said that the new market had “good facilities” and that they did not charge for the vendors to use the washrooms on weekdays.
One man pointed out that “for the market [new] to function it needs businesses like pharmaceuticals, Western Union so people would be encouraged to come in. Those in authority have to listen to the cries of the people − find out why they leave a good market to come here.”
A farmer/vendor, Nazir Ali said the new market dis not have proper management and that person “should be educated about how the market must function. If they cannot handle the situation then they should take it to another level.”
