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Troubles seem never ending for Parika vendors
The troubles faced by vendors operating alongside the Parika Mini-Bus Park seem to be never ending, since they were again ordered to move in three days or face ‘stall demolition’ by their Regional Chairman, Julian Fabian.
Slippers and other items marketed by the roadside vendors take up an ample portion of the Parika Public Road.
This newspaper was summoned on Saturday to the KSI entrance where the vendors operate and they provided a document purported to be written and signed by the Regional Chairman, which dictated that they move from the location by today.
When Kaieteur News visited the location, vendors were literally weeping and relating their plight to VCT Reporter, Michael Younge, who was also in the area at that time.
Just recently, after intense lobbying and putting up a strong fight against NDC officials who were seizing their goods, the vendors had succeeded in getting the NDC Chairman, Krishna Samlall to grant them the permission to occupy the spot, providing they kept it tidy at all times. The vendors then joined forces and cleaned up the otherwise filthy area and purchasing wood, made respectable looking stalls and foundation on the location. Pretty umbrellas emerged and the tidy little stalls took on a tourist like appearance.
The vendors are aghast at the noticed they received, ranting that it was prompted by the fact that at least six stubborn female vendors still remain on the road marketing their produce directly on more than six inches of the road itself.
Reports are that these vendors were warned daily to take up other existent spots along the KSI entrance like the others but they all bluntly refused.
Kaieteur News noted that vendors still operating on the roadside had slippers and other articles which were laid out on the asphalt. The vendors who received notices to move have related that there were also some who, though they have stalls in the Parika Market, are bent on making trouble and would call the Regional Chairman on a daily basis and make false reports, thus ‘stirring up trouble’.
Vendors manning stalls in the market vehemently related that those functioning alongside the bus park were just ‘stubborn and always dissatisfied’.
They said the KSI vendors never seemed to be content with ‘practically anything’ and are always bent on ‘having their own ways’.
Even as they were making such claims, it was pointed out by reliable sources that these market vendors have erected stalls along the roadside too and were taking over space much needed for vehicular traffic.
The KSI vendors pointed out that they depend on the sales from persons traversing the Parika Mini-bus Park, Stelling and roadside, and as such were crippled when they were once placed at a location far behind the market where almost no one visited.
They explained that since most residents plant kitchen gardens, it is more difficult to garner sales and impossible to operate in the location they were once placed by the NDC.
All around the mini-bus operators were shaking their heads again in dismay and lamenting the fact that while the vendors are again being harassed, no proper alternative was being put in place for them.
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