Market vending comprises a significant part of the small business sector. The contribution of this aspect of the retail trade to economic life as a whole is important in several respects not least of which is the fact that market trading provides employment for hundreds of vendors many, perhaps most of whom, have been in the business for all of their working lives.
Over time, strong bonds have developed between ,market stallholders trading in groceries and consumers, particularly ordinary housewives and not even the advent of the more modern, better-appoined supermarkets have broken those bonds. This has to do with the fact that shopping in the municipal markets is seen as one way of engaging in the kind of ‘penny-pinching’ that is necessary to stay within the limits of ‘the tight’ budgets of low-inco me Guyanese.
The vendors themselves, are in many cases, ordinary, hard-working people who have opted for an honest living in a society where less honest options have become commonplace. They pay the rents that are asked of them by City Hall and conduct their business in a highly competitive environment in which the smaller operators must satisfy themselves with wafer thin returns.
Our urban municipal markets have long been victims of chronic neglect and the decrepit state of Kitty Market, for example, provides glaring testimony to City Hall’s abject failure to discharge its responsibilities to both the vendors who must pay for use of the markets and to the buildings themselves which are important historical landmarks.
Vendor complaints about conditions including a lack of routine maintenance works and an absence of infrastructure that that would allow them to ply their trade in a modicum of comfort are nothing new and, in most cases, have gone unheeded by City Hall.
The situation amounts to a blatant and altogether unacceptable disregard for the welfare of the vendors and there can be no acceptable excuse for it.
The concerns that are currently being raised by the vendors in The Bourda market have to do with the fact that they are now being asked by the City Council to pay additional rent for conditions that are, in many respects, unsafe, unhealthy and environmentally unsustainable. Apart from a roof through which water literally pours in whenever it rains, the vendors in Bourda Market have no reliable access to running water or proper toilet facilities; and while the rents that they pay to the Council are intended to take account, among other things, the security of the market, break-ins and losses, for which City Hall accepts no responsibility, are quite commonplace.
The vendors’ outrage and their concomitant decision to move to thre courts to block the rent increases is perfectly understandable. One vendor told this newspaper that it is simply a question of ‘exploiting poor people” and she may well have a point. Just a few weeks ago Clerk of Markets Schulder Griffith told Stabroek Business that there is really no good rreason why the situation at the Bourda Market should be as bad as it is. He went further, expressing a sense of personal frustration over what he says are the lengthy and, sometimes, inexplicable delays on the part of the Council in effecting necessary repairs to the market. He said too that part of his own frustration has to do with the fact that while the monies accruing from stall rentals were enough to cover some of the services being sought by the vendors, the decisions as to how those funds are spent restes with the Council rather than with his offoce.
City Hall will no doubt say – as it does whenever issues arise in relation to the discharge of its responsibilities – that its revenue base is too small to cover all of its obligations. That, however, is a time-worn excuse which, in this case, should not be countenanced. If, as has been suggested by the Clerk of Markets, the vendors are not receiving the services for which they are required to pay, then, whatever the reasons, the City is delinquent in the discharge of its responsibilities to the vendors and cannot, in al fairness, be asked to pay more for a continually declining service.
Up until now we have heard little from City Hall regarding its plan announced several months ago to pursue a more aggressive approach to the collection of rates and taxes to help finance the services that it is obliged to provide and except there are developments of which we are blissfully unaware, its publicly announced initiative to pursue projects that will bring more revenue to its coffers appear to be going nowhere.
The municipality has long been making the point that some of its problems are of a political nature and have to do with what has long been a prickly relationship with the government. That, however, is not an issue that ought to concern the vendors who already have more than enough on their plates seeking to make a living in a difficult economic environment.
The other issue that is perhaps worthy of mention is the silence of the various privatre sector organizations including the Private Sector Commission, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association on this issue. Should their silence be regarded as an indifference to the concerns of the vendors whose businesses, after all, are linked to the activities of the members of these organizations in important ways?
The Bourda Market vendors clearly feel a sense of ourrage over what they regard as the abuse and exploited that inheres in this latest demand from City Hall and what they are asking is that increases in rents be tied to the fulfillment of long-overdue promises by the municipality to improve the conditions at the market. That is not too much to ask.