The Parika Market was in the second phase of its rehabilitation when the complex along with roadside stalls were completely destroyed by a huge fire on Friday afternoon reportedly caused by welding sparks from workmen.
Region Three Chairman, Inshan Ayube yesterday told the Sunday Stabroek that the contract for the second phase of the East Bank Essequibo market was signed late last year and that the company was given a five-month time frame to complete it.
The contract went to Panko Steel Fabrication and Construction. This newspaper had reported on the tender opening on October 11 last year and based on the report, the lone company was Panko which submitted a bid of $270,017,821 for the project, estimated to cost $230,136,170 by the engineers of the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development.
The contract was signed on December 2nd, 2022, according to a post on the Facebook page of Minister in the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar. He had said that the PPP/C Government was injecting $270 million to modernise the Parika Market. Indar had further noted that the works to be conducted were part of a wider package of development projects that are being executed in the region to improve the livelihood of residents.
The $29.2 million contract for the first phase of the market was signed in July, 2021, by the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Nigel Dharamlall, and awarded to VAL’s Construction Company.
In 2021 when the first contract was signed, the Department of Public Information (DPI) had reported the minister as saying, “This is part of our budgetary support approved by the Government to enhance the infrastructure of the Parika Market. This work we expect will be done in the very near future, in a few months, so that those vendors who are terribly affected at Parika, that they are going to be able to get back into the market, under better conditions of work.”
The article had also detailed that the rehabilitation work would see the construction of some 1,000 square feet of roof with translucent sheets, to allow natural light to illuminate the market. A 300-foot concrete and steel fence was also to be erected, along with a four-chamber sanitary facility.
In April of last year when President Irfaan Ali had made a visit to the market, he had said that the intended upgrade aimed at eliminating the illegal vending which was being done on the roadside and as such upon completion, the vendors on the outside would have been moved into the refurbished market complex. “We will expand the tarmac, we will look at putting in the canopy – the walkway canopy, and then we will also look at enhancing the facility…” the DPI article quoted Ali as saying.
In videos which were circulated on social media yesterday showing the aftermath of the fire, the distraught vendors could be seen sifting through the burnt remains of the market and their burnt stalls along the road with hopes of recovering whatever might be of some value to them. They have since been calling on the relevant authorities to look into their disastrous plight since vending was the only source of income for many of them.
The Guyana Fire Service (GFS) had said that they were alerted to the fire at about 3:14pm on Friday and
immediately dispatched various water tenders from six fire stations. Upon their arrival they used the Essequibo River as an open water source to extinguish the blaze.
At the scene on Friday firefighters were observed tirelessly trying to put out the blaze which kept reigniting due to the prevalence of combustible materials such as wood, cloth and other items that were in the midst of construction and belonging to the vendors.
The GFS had said that their preliminary investigation has revealed that construction workers who were in the process of rebuilding the market were conducting welding when sparks came into contact with nearby combustible materials, which ignited.
Many vendors had recounted hearing the noise of firecrackers and explosives which they said were allegedly being sold by a vendor whose stall was directly under where they men were working. According to most of them, the men were performing welding on the roof of the complex when sparks from the welding ignited the alleged explosives in the stall.
Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn had told the media that they were in the process of making a list of all the vendors so that an evaluation can be done in order to assess the situation since many of the vendors had claimed that they lost millions in the fire.
On Friday, the Region Three chairman had said that the vendors were given orders on Monday to evacuate the market complex but had failed to do so.
“We had a meeting with the vendors and we told them at some point of time they will have to remove from the front here so that the construction would’ve moved on, incidentally during the Christmas holiday they were informed that immediately after the holiday they would need to move, last week they were supposed to move, they failed to do so, I’m not saying this to diminish what they would’ve lost or anything but I’m saying how this thing happened is very unfortunate because I was here Tuesday and I had a meeting with them at the front there and I said you know the construction work have to move on so you’ll be moving Monday which they agree so what happen here today is very unfortunate,” said Ayube at the scene of the fire on Friday.
All of the rehabilitation work has now been destroyed. As of yesterday no further update on the blaze was provided by the fire service.
