By Shirley Thomas

VICE President of the Guyana Market Vendors Union, Carol Carter, plans to take legal action against the City Council after ranks from the City Constabulary removed, in her absence, more than $300,000 worth of items from her stall in the Stabroek Market. Carter, who owns a permanent stall from which she vends footwear at the north-eastern end of Stabroek Market, told the media that on Thursday her husband was manning the stall in her absence when, at about 11:00 hrs, he briefly left the stall to respond to an emergency call.

Before leaving, he secured the items with a green tarpaulin on the stall, but upon his return, he was appalled to find that the tarpaulin had been removed and a large quantity of slippers had gone missing. However, persons in the vicinity informed him that ranks of the City Constabulary had removed the items from the stall and taken them away to the Clerk of Market’s Office on the wharf.

NO COOPERATION
According to Carter, she and her husband reported the matter at the Brickdam Police Station, but were disappointed at the response of the police, who gave them no satisfaction and failed to record the details of the report.

Noting that the constables had visited the stall in her and her husband’s absence and removed the items without either their knowledge or permission, the couple is contending that the constables were guilty of trespassing and larceny. However, after getting no satisfaction from the Brickdam police, the couple returned to their stall to secure what was left of their goods.

But unknown to the constabulary ranks, at least one person who was nearby and had witnessed the removal of the items, filmed the entire proceedings and turned the film over to Carter and her husband.

“This is provocation to its highest! I feel that my rights as a stall holder, my rights as a businesswoman, have been violated highly by the Clerk of Market and his workers; and I am not going to take this lightly, because it is not the first time that they have seized goods from my business. I need that behaviour to stop. After all, we are not encumbering anywhere; we are displaying, and we have a legal right to display our goods,” Carter said.

“This is provocation to its highest! I feel that my rights as a stall holder, my rights as a businesswoman, have been violated highly by the Clerk of Market and his workers; and I am not going to take this lightly, because it is not the first time that they have seized goods from my business. I need that behaviour to stop. After all, we are not encumbering anywhere; we are displaying, and we have a legal right to display our goods,” Carter said.

Carter believes she is being targeted because of her position in the Market Vendors Union. Other vendors around the market have substantiated the contention that seizing of their items is the norm with the City Constabulary Revenue employees.

Carter contended that, in the market setting, anyone speaking out against the atrocities being committed by certain functionaries would become the number one target for those functionaries.

“I feel that are deliberately setting out to frustrate the vendors with the hope that they would cower and bow out, or hope that their actions would force you to commit yourself and get involved with the law. But I am a [psychological] fighter and I shall not back down, I have been wronged and I mean that justice must be served,” Carter said.

An elderly woman, who is said to have suffered broken hips and sits in a wheelchair in that same vicinity selling footwear, claimed that in the recent past she had also been a victim of the same kind of attitude by the constabulary ranks, who had swept her stand clean and taken away her slippers. Out of caution, the young man who works at the stall with her decided to count the slippers the ranks were taking away. That incurred their wrath, and they whisked him away to their constabulary depot, where he was charged and has been ordered to appear in court next week.

Declaring that enough is enough, the vendors at the Stabroek Market are calling on Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan, to allow for systems to be put in place which would ensure that an inventory of items seized from their stalls be made by the owners. That document should also be signed by the City official in charge of the seizing crew, and a copy should be kept by that official.