The Private Sector Commis-sion (PSC) is currently engaging Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee in a bid to forestall moves to outlaw the commercial activities of itinerant music vendors who ply the streets pushing handcarts fitted with stereo equipment.
This newspaper understands that moves to prohibit this particular form of music trade are being made at the level of the Law and Order Commission which is chaired by Rohee on the grounds that the loud playing of music as a form of advertisement constitutes a noise nuisance. The vendors are also accused of obstructing traffic during their trading activity.
In recent weeks the police have moved to more strictly enforce a prohibition on itinerant music vending and some vendors who were charged were required to pay fines of between $30,000 and $50,000 in addition to which they had their carts seized.
More than 200 persons are believed to be involved in this form of the music trade, some as owner/operators and others as hired employees. No regulatory system is in place to govern the operations of the vendors some of whom are using Huckster Licences as authority to trade while others are formally registering their ventures as formal businesses. Prior to the imposition of the prohibition the police had directed that the names and addresses of the owners of the carts be marked on the carts.
PSC Chairman Captain Gerry Gouveia who is also a member of the Law and Order Commission told Stabroek Business that he had met with several owners and vendors in his capacity as PSC Chairman and that the position of the local private sector body was that some measure of representation should be provided for persons whom he said “probably had no other means of financial support in many instances.”
Gouveia said that since the authorities had moved rather belatedly to address the issue any intervention in a “business activity” through which people were earning “an honest living” would probably be ill-advised. “We are proposing that the activity be regularized instead of being banned,” the PSC Chairman told Stabroek Business.
Gouveia told Stabroek Business that he had had “an amiable and useful discussion with the Home Affairs Minister on the issue and that earlier this week he had written to the Minister setting out proposals for regulations to govern the running of the itinerant vending operations. The nine measures recommended by the PSC include the requirement that the vendors be registered with the Guyana Revenue Authority and that they be required to purchase road licences; that operators of music carts acquire hucksters licences; that operators be uniformed; that carts be operated between 07:00 hrs and 18:00 hrs; that carts be marked with owners’ names, addresses, telephone numbers and that they be fitted with reflectors for the purpose of road safety; that carts not operate in areas where there are hospitals, schools, places of worship, police stations, Courts of Law or in the vicinity of Parliament buildings and that carts be used only for the purpose of selling commercial media content including music and videos. The PSC communication to the Home Affairs Minister also expresses the view that in the event that vendors choose to use their carts for the sale or distribution of any other legal material or for advertising or public announcement purposes they should be required to comply with the regulations governing those other activities.
Significantly, little has been said about the transgression by the music vendors of laws governing the sale or distribution of protected intellectual property an issue on which the government has maintained a stony silence for several years. The fact that the expressed official concern over the activities of the music vendors makes no mention of their pirating of the music CD’s which they offer for sale underscores the dilemma in which the government finds itself on the broader copyright issue.
Gouveia told Stabroek Business that the PSC’s communication with the Home Affairs Minister was “a work in progress” which he hoped “would see the vendors return to the streets under conditions that are more acceptable both to the public and the authorities.” The PSC Chairman said, however, that “during this period the activity remains prohibited and those who ignore that fact run the risk of being prosecuted.”