Long deprived of anything even remotely resembling a convivial environment in which to ply their trade in the conditions afforded by the dilapidated wharf at the western extreme of the Stabroek Market, the dozens of long-suffering vendors are to benefit from a new multi- million trading facility.
This newspaper has been told that the now collapsed section of the Stabroek Wharf on which the vendors once traded will be restored and there will be a complete makeover to include an entertainment area boasting eating houses and a recreation area.
Work on the creation of the new trading area, City Hall Public Relations Officer Debra Lewis has told Stabroek Business will begin in March and the cost of the facility will be shared by the municipality and the Ministry of Public Works.
The first meaningful official response since the collapse of a section of the wharf in March last year displaced more than 200 vendors has elicited a less than euphoric response from the vendors who must now wait out an unknown period in the less than ideal conditions offered by the Georgetown Stelling, where they have been located.
These, however, are trying times for vendors. Some of them have told this newspaper that they believe that the importance of them earning a livelihood is gradually being subsumed beneath the prevailing emphasis of ‘restoring the capital.” It is, one vendor suggested, a matter of the