The chaos that has, for years, passed for vending in the vicinity of the Stabroek Market could not have been allowed to go on forever; pity indeed that it took an incident involving loss of life and multiple injuries to get the authorities to do something to address the problem.
City Hall must take responsibility for the chaos outside the market. For years it has played a game of ‘cat and mouse’ with the vendors who have been trading illegally in the vicinity of the market and it is a matter of speculation as to whether it is the will or the capacity of the council to act decisively to end the chaos that has been lacking.
The government has used ‘security concerns’ as a reason to demolish several structures. In the process, it has acted like a bull in a China shop, swiftly and indiscriminately demolishing structures, including public conveniences and smashing water mains which, presumably, will have to be repaired at some stage. More than that, apart from having displaced some long-standing, albeit illegal vendors, it has precipitated yet another row with City Hall which has correctly asserted that it ought to have been consulted at the level of the Mayor before the demolition job began.
City Hall faces an unfortunate but real problem that has to do with its image as a weak and unreliable institution and while that ought not to excuse the highhandedness which the government displayed over the vending issue, no one, it seems, is entirely surprised that the municipality is being stomped on once again. One suspects that until, somehow, City Hall can regain a modicum of respect within its own constituency, that is, the citizens of Georgetown, more such incidents will occur.
Some of the vendors, both those who have been displaced and those who have been authorized by the President to resume trading have expressed a desire to form an umbrella organization. Apart from the fact that the stated desire has not so far been backed by any concrete action, the legitimacy of such an organization (as a City Hall official pointed out) is likely to be compromised by the fact that the legality of the operations of some of the vendors who are likely to become members is itself an issue for consideration. In other words, official bodies like government and the municipality would probably not be inclined to meet an umbrella organization some of whose members, by the very act of trading, are breaking the law.
No one can blame the authorities for wanting to create an environment in the city that seeks to suppress crime though those who do so must ask themselves whether the indiscriminate, less than carefully thought out dispersal of vendors, legal or illegal, is likely to contribute to the suppression of crime. The point to be made about the vendors – and we would all do well to accept it – is that these are people whom, in a city where crime is virtually out of control, consciously opted to pursue an honest living. Of course they must be made to respect the by-laws of the city but in the process their own honest choices must also be respected.
The bottom line here is that over the years both the government and the municipality have failed, individually and collectively, to create an environment that can accommodate the small commercial enterprises which vending represents while ensuring that a sense of order is maintained in the city. The Water Street Arcade represents an effort of sorts but that is nowhere near enough since more and more people whom, incidentally, are unable to find jobs in the formal system, are making a decision to get into vending. Accordingly, and even if it is true that we cannot allow for a haphazard regime of street vending that compromises other concerns including security, account must be taken of the need to make legitimate and convenient provision for vending.
One might have hoped that the established private sector umbrella bodies like the Private Sector Commission and the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry would have come to see vending as an acceptable commercial pursuit and would have sought to contribute as best it can to the creation of a legitimate, organised vending culture. There is no evidence that this has been the case. Vendors are regarded as a breed apart though some effort to recognise, even embrace them may well have helped to create a well-ordered vending environment.
While President Jagdeo has opted for some measure of damage control by allowing some of the registered vendors to resume work albeit under a strict set of rules, the situation still remains potentially volatile since the fact that there are others who appear to be awaiting promised relocation means that the environment in the vicinity of the market is tense.
If a well-ordered vending regime cannot be created in an environment that compromises security and public safety, that does not mean that vending as a commercial pursuit should be either disregarded or ill-treated. What it means is that the institutions – government, the municipality, the private sector organisations and the vendors representatives — must work together to create an ordered vending infrastructure. Manifestly, government and the municipality are daggers drawn, caught up in a game of utterly meaningless brinkmanship. The vending problem will clearly not be solved in that environment.
