By Telesha Ramnarine

PUBLIC Relations Officer (PRO) of the Mayor and City Council (M&CC), Ms Debra Lewis, has said that work on the Kitty Market is not necessarily stalled because of financial issues, but the unavailability of the right type of materials. “Finances are involved to some level, but not totally,” Lewis told the Chronicle when asked yesterday. Work is expected to resume later this week or early in the new week, she said.
Meanwhile, the materials have already been procured on Tuesday. “We can’t use just any type of materials,” Lewis said, adding: “There have been intermittent disruptions, but the project has not come to a total standstill.”
Lewis further said that consideration ought to be given to the fact that restoring the Kitty Market is a very big project that the M&CC is solely undertaking.
However, a source at City Hall told this newspaper on Tuesday that the contractor for the Kitty Market has put a pause on rehabilitation works there as a result of an exhausted credit line.
In fact, other contractors have been crying out that they are not being paid in a timely fashion for services, and that Town Clerk Royston King has been having them “back and forth” for payments.
RATES AND TAXES OFFICE

The upper flat of the Kitty Market is being remodelled to include a rates and taxes office, as well as a municipal clinic. “People from Cummings Lodge to Kitty don’t have to come all the way to City Hall to pay their rates and taxes. We are aiming to reintroduce the system that was in place many, years ago,” Mayor Patricia Chase-Green had told the Chronicle recently.
The City Council had hoped to finish works on the market in time for the Golden Jubilee celebrations, but was unable to, in view of other necessary works, Chase-Green reported.
The upper flat of the market will also accommodate new vendors, and installing a clinic up there will also be looked at.
Meanwhile, Kitty Market vendors are eagerly anticipating completion of the market.
The 19th Century structure suffered massive deterioration over the years, causing vendors operating in the area to lodge numerous complaints with the City Council. The Council, however, had long been citing financial woes as the reason the market continued to remain a “threat to life and limb.”
Under the new administration, City Hall embarked on a $240M restoration exercise as of February last.
The Kitty Market was established in 1882, two years after the Bourda Market came into being. Like the Bourda Market, the Kitty Market is timber-framed.