Dear Editor,
WHEN I pass along the area the Georgetown City Council has the nerve to call ‘the Parliament View Mall’ — which should really be called ‘Parliament View Tent City’, as a mall is a modern complex of shops representing merchandisers, and not rows of tents — I shed a tear for my brothers and sisters who are forced to vend there.It reminds me of what my history teacher told me: how the captains used to load their boats with slaves with one system called loose packing to deliver slaves, whilst the other was called tight packing. Of course the Parliament Mall is tight packing, with two persons made to share a small 10’X 10’ tent with all of their goods.

It is the discrimination of the vendors by the Council that bothers me. For friends and relatives of senior administrators of the Council who are vendors, the Council built sturdy weather proof and attractive booths all along Orange Walk and in other areas, and housed them there safely; whilst for vendors who have no pals in the Council, they are accommodated under small flimsy tents, and are exposed to the elements.

City Council’s treatment of the vendors is comparable to George Orwell’s allegorical and dystopian novel called Animal Farm, particularly as it relates to the quote that says ‘ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS’.

Worse than that: the Town Clerk, in his continued justification for the brutish removal of the vendors, has said that crimes around the Stabroek Market have significantly decreased since he removed the vendors. He is quoted as saying crime was high in the area, with the council receiving reports of at least 10 robberies being committed daily outside Demico House alone, and that ever since the area was cleared, there has been no such report.

Further, he is quoted as saying that some vendors also conspired with the criminals in the execution of robberies. To make it simple, he is saying that some vendors are criminals — a most hurtful and tactless statement that he should be made to withdraw and apologize for.

If the City Constabulary knows those vendors who are criminals, then they should arrest and charge them, just as the very Town Clerk was arrested by the Fraud Division of the Guyana Police Force last year and hauled before the courts.

Sincerely,
JERMAIN JOHNSON