While it is the right of persons to earn a living, that right should not result in “vending on another person’s property” while at the same time posing health and safety hazards to pedestrians and other occupants – Minister Whittaker.

WHILE the Local Government Ministry has signed contracts to the tune of millions for building new market tarmacs, concerns exist as to whether this is enough to deter or make reasonable accommodation for the many cases of ‘illegal’ roadside vending. 

This concern was put to Local Government and Regional Development Minister, Norman Whittaker, who responded that while this continues to be a concern for the Ministry, “the law allows you to remove people forcibly, but that’s the last thing you want to do.”
He did say, however, that the idea is not to give illegal vendors an excuse since they “impede the flow of traffic and …contribute significantly to the pileup of garbage.”
In an effort to bring this practice to an end, the Local Government Minister said there had been some combined efforts between the subject ministry, Office of the Town Clerk, and the City Constabulary but those efforts were short-lived by the intervention of Georgetown Mayor, Hamilton Green.
Green, in late 2013, threw his support behind vendors who were at risk of being removed by the then campaign to clean the streets of illegal vendors.

MAYOR’S CONTRARY POSITION
This was contrary to his position taken in early 2013 where the Mayor held a meeting with several Central Georgetown vendors, giving them a final warning of removal if they failed to put measures in place to do less damage in the areas they occupied.
Then President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Clinton Urling had similarly thrown full support behind the Government’s move to remove illegal vendors.
As a voice of the business community, Ulring in his capacity as GCCI President called for the measures to be implemented at a faster rate since the vendors were guilty of “violating the rights of store owners and their businesses.”
A concern was similarly raised by Urling and others that the measures adopted by the Ministry, and those the Ministry claimed to be collaborating with, were either ineffective or nonexistent.
In his recent statement to this newspaper, Minister Whittaker said that La Penitence Market is being closely monitored by the Ministry since there was one vendor occupying government reserves.
That area will soon be serviced by a tarmac constructed as part of the Ministry’s drive to put an end to illegal roadside vending.
The Minister stressed that while it is the right of persons to earn a living, that right should not result in “vending on another person’s property” while at the same time posing health and safety hazards to pedestrians and other occupants.
The Local Government and Regional Development Ministry in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with funding from the India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) Fund, will see market tarmacs and extension works being done to markets in Anna Regina, Annandale, Linden, Lethem, Rosignol, La Penitence and Diamond.

(By Derwayne Wills)