EVEN as some 500 vendors are to be affected by the rehabilitation project of the Stabroek Market wharf, the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has not yet released any concrete information about where they will be relocated.

A number of areas have been identified by Town Clerk Royston King and the Markets Public Health Committee, but it is not clear which one will be able to accommodate the 500 vendors who were identified during a walk through by city officials.

“There is no concrete solution; no clear understanding of how the project will go forward,” a source told the Chronicle on Saturday. In fact, the source said while the committee was tasked with finding relocation spots, the Town Clerk also on his own identified a location.
At the Council’s most recent statutory meeting at City Hall, King informed the councillors that he has written to the Ministry of Public Infrastructure on the project, but has not gotten a response as yet. He said the Council is ready to move forward with the project, but must now wait to hear from the ministry. The ministry is undertaking the project.

Last October, King had said that vendors plying their trade on the Stabroek Market wharf will be relocated to the area west of the Public Buildings. Mayor Patricia Chase-Green told the Guyana Chronicle, though, that not all of the vendors will be accommodated at this location. She said other places are still being looked at, and that the municipality has not yet decided where the rest of the vendors will be placed.

The Mayor had at one point lamented on the Markets Public Health Committee’s ‘lackluster’ approach to the relocation of the vendors. “I am not hearing from the committee, and I hope that we can start consultations with those persons, so that they will be able to give us ideas of where they can be relocated while the wharf is being constructed,” she’d said.
The mayor’s fear at the time was that should no action be taken about relocating the vendors, the money the government has set aside for it could be redirected. “Councillors, if we do not do that, we will not be able to get that wharf done, and the money will be relocated,” she said. “And I don’t think, under my stewardship, I want that money to be relocated, when we had been forewarned.
“We have to be very vigilant and very alert, and ensure that that market rehabilitation is not prolonged because of the lackadaisical way in which we approach the relocation of vendors,” she added. Approximately $400M is reportedly to be spent on rehabilitating the dilapidated wharf, King had said. He noted that the unsightly structure is soon to be torn down and replaced with a mall-like facility, complete with a boardwalk and entertainment area.

“Vendors ought not to worry, as they will be given first preference to return, once the project has been completed. However due to the modernisation the vendors will be asked to pay a little more rent,” King explained. The portion of the stelling which faces the Demerara River has, for years, been an eyesore for the thousands who use the speedboat service every day. The collapse of a portion of the roof some years ago, however, did not deter vendors from conducting business there. “The facility is not only an eyesore; it is ruinous and dangerous to the health and lives of persons who use it,” King said.