–so vendors can ‘clean up their act’

THE Mon Repos Market has been shut down for a week due to the illegal disposal of garbage

in and around the market, particularly by some vendors who sell meat and fish at the East Coast Demerara facility.
Overseer at the Lusignan/Mon Repos Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), Mr Parsram Ramkissoon told the Guyana Chronicle on Tuesday that even though the Council has contracted the services of Cevon’s Waste Management to collect garbage there, persons still persist in indiscriminately disposing of their refuse at nights.

Garbage is dumped on the roadways in the vicinity of the bank, the taxi park and along the tarmac across the way from the market proper, which is also used for vending, especially ‘wild meat’ for which that particular location is famed.
The nauseating stench of rotting garbage, particularly the head and intestines of fish and unused parts of other animals, is noticeable from as afar off as Agriculture Road, located almost a block away.
When the Guyana Chronicle visited the area Tuesday, the stench was almost unbearable, yet for all this, the place was a hive of activity because, as one stallholder observed, “We have to make a living; we got to survive.”

A HEALTH HAZARD
One woman who operates a store and lives just behind the tarmac, where all the ‘wild meat’ is sold, said her business has suffered tremendously because of the stench. Even her health has suffered, she said.
“Oh God! Meh cyan tek this smell, baby! Dis t’ing get meh sick, sick, sick!” she said, adding:
“Dis place suh stink it mekkin yuh upset… Yesterday, whole day meh vomit.”
She noted that while the strewing of garbage has been going on for years, it has now become so overbearing that the stench is affecting even persons passing the area in vehicles.
And what is even more perplexing, she said, is that one is forced to put up with this inconvenience in silence. “Yuh cyan talk! Dem a cuss yuh!”
The stench got so bad over the weekend that seven-year-old Yusuf Hack has been vomiting since Sunday. His mother said because she had to go out urgently, she’d left him with his uncle at a meat stand at the tarmac for the day. He fell sick shortly after, and hasn’t been able to attend school ever since. “Like he pick up some bacteria and he ah vomit,” his mom said.

FINANCIAL LOSS
Most of the vendors complained of the financial loss they have suffered over the years because of the stench. One man who sells mutton, chicken and duck said he has lost many a customer, as they all believe that his meat cannot be healthy given the environment in which he’s operating.
“Dem corking dem nose and saying, ‘Ah wha stink suh?’ And when me seh, ‘Aunty, is garbage,’ dem seh, ‘Boy, watch, I cyan buy.’ Suh, I losing sale.”
He said all day Monday and up to around 14:00hrs on Tuesday, he had not made a sale.
Another meat vendor expressed anger and disgust at the situation, and suggested that those who are culpable be must be prosecuted.
Meanwhile, some fish vendors, upon whom most of the blame is cast, said they are paying daily rentals to the NDC, and expect the council to clean the area properly, even if they pile their garbage on the tarmac and roadways.

One said that she, too, is fed up with the unhealthy conditions under which they are forced to ply their trade, but feels they do their part every day.
“We washing we stand; we putting we garbage in bag. We putting we garbage one place,” she said. “It means, then, that the persons who cleaning the market suppose to collect the garbage but they’re not.”
She explained that the NDC has closed the market since Monday, ostensibly to accommodate rehabilitation, so fish vendors now have to sell on the tarmac. However, the NDC Overseer disputes this, saying that the reason the market has been closed is because of the stench and the illegal disposal of garbage by the vendors.
“They dumping all over the place, and what the Council do is they took a decision to close the market for the week; so they gon do a general clean up,” he said.
But the fish vendor made an important point, in that the garbage is not picked up in a timely manner; that it is only picked up once a week, and that is on Sundays.