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Major construction creates uncertainty for small businesses
This craft and clothing vendor will soon have to find an alternative spot to ply his trade
Not everyone in the New Diamond Housing Scheme is rejoicing that two commercial banks are being constructed in the community.
Those who are not happy are the vendors and hire car drivers who will have to remove their parking lot and stalls to make way for the two structures.
Stallholders who spoke to Kaieteur News yesterday said that officials from the Grove Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) informed them of this development about two months ago.
Construction workers have already begun erecting the foundations for the Demerara Bank and Guyana Bank of Trade and Industry Ltd. (GBTI) branches, which will be located adjacent to each other at the front of the scheme.
The vendors say that what worries them is that, as far as they are aware, no alternative area has been identified for them to ply their trade. They are seemingly at a loss as to how they will be able to earn a living.
“This is our livelihood; we have bills to pay and children to send to school,” lamented one vendor, who says his family has been selling vegetables in the area for over three years.
“If we move how will we make a living?”
The vendor told Kaieteur News that, through their vegetable business, the family was able to acquire a mortgage.
Now he worries that he may not be able to repay his loan.
The vendors stressed that any alternative location has to be near the entrance to the housing scheme.
But one of the areas that they suggested, a huge portion of the reserve on the road leading into the scheme, has reportedly already been sold to a business entity.
The hire car drivers say they also face an uncertain future because the little strip on the East Bank Demerara Public Road parapet where they park is in front of the commercial banks.
Yesterday, construction workers began to dump massive logs on the area and informed the drivers that they will be building a bridge there soon.
The hire car drivers say that what irks them is that they had recently dumped several truckloads of sand on the area for a makeshift parapet. Originally, the drivers had constructed a parking area on a section of the reserve near the entrance to the scheme.
But that spot was then sold to a business entity which now has a permanent structure there.
Like the vendors, the hire car drivers say that no one has identified an alternative spot for them.
“They want to make this scheme into a town and they have not even identified a place for drivers to park,” one hire car operator said.
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