Showdown looms at Bourda Green
The coverings City Council wants the vendors to remove
The coverings City Council wants the vendors to remove

STALLHOLDERS selling on Bourda Green are expecting a big showdown with City Market authorities for failure to respond to a notice, purported to have come from the Clerk of Markets (ag), but which they contend, has no legal basis.

The notice bears no signature, was not written on a letterhead, nor does it have an official stamp.The strongly worded notice, dated September 26, gives the holders of stalls on the Bourda Green a 14-day ultimatum to remove all makeshift overhead shelters connecting stalls, and/or extensions to stalls and passageways, failing which “necessary action” will be taken against them.The notice states that the removal of the coverings is “to facilitate the installation of additional security lights within this section of the market.” Unless these are removed, the notice claims, new security lights could not be properly installed. But the stallholders are saying they would not fall for that talk because, Council is advancing a lot of measures when they know that they are cash-strapped.

No sales! Faced with competition from the roadside, at 16:00hrs, the vendors in the permanent stands look as though they’d just opened up for business

The vendors say that for years they have been exposed to the elements and their customers would be drenched whenever it rains, since they had no place to shelter.  And as for security lights, they had begged the Council ad nauseam to install lights on the Green, since break-ins and stealing had become rampant.  After realising that their cries had fallen on deaf ears, the vendors ran their own lights and set up makeshift coverings to protect them from heavy rainfall and conversely – the hot sun.

Additionally, they explained, these coverings offer shelter for customers , as well as the vendors themselves, since they are not behind counters.Meanwhile, executives and members of the Guyana Market Vendors Union are up in arms against what they call atrocities and high handedness taking place on the Bourda Green, resulting in added and unjustifiable financial burdens being placed on them by the office of the clerk of markets.They are therefore calling for an audience with the clerk of markets and/or other authorised agents of the municipality to address (iron out) these concerns, which they hope will redound to the good of all persons concerned.

Meanwhile, the union, headed by President Eon Andrews is incensed, arguing that the Council cannot arbitrarily take a decision to order the dismantling of vendors’ property without first having a meeting with them, discussing the implications and moreso giving them adequate time to make such changes.

A Bourda Green vendor makes a point to the media highlighting the difficulties they face at the hands of the market authorities

“What is needed here is dialogue.  Already we are not making money, so where are we going to get money to pay for such works?” they ask. They want to know just who will stand the cost of installing the security lights in the market place, since the Council is known to be perpetually without money. “So if we take down our lights, we can very well end up waiting for another year before the first light is put up by Council. By then, and in fact within the first few days, our stalls can be ‘swept clean.’  Tell us who will bear the liability then!” they demanded.

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