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Works Ministry demolition crew hits business establishments
What is now left of the ‘would be’ supermarket in Zeelugt.
In what seems to be a never ending campaign by the Public Works Ministry, the demolition crew has now turned its attention to business establishments in Zeelugt, East Bank Essequibo.
A Chinese family that operates a Chinese Restaurant named ‘Chang Cheng’ was given two weeks to remove their establishment from the government reserve at 291 Zeelugt.
With tears in her eyes, Shameeza Hendricks, told Kaieteur News that she and her husband has been operating and renting the facility for approximately two years now.
The woman, who also has a three-year-old son, said that she has no relatives in Guyana and has no idea where she and her family would live.
“We can’t do nothing about it and it hurts me a lot because we have nowhere to go.” Hendricks noted that only a few months ago, she painted the business place and bought new furniture to make her family more comfortable.
Meanwhile, this is not the end of the situation, as Hendricks’s landlord, Carmalita Narine, had her ‘would be’ supermarket partially dismantled by the demolition crew yesterday.
Narine told this newspaper that the Chinese Restaurant which she rented to Hendricks was originally a ‘rum shop’ which she operated for approximately ten years, but then she decided to rent it to the Chinese Family two years ago.
The woman and her family decided to construct a facility to house a supermarket, but this never became a reality as the demolition crew from the Ministry of Public Works destroyed the front of the building in an effort to get the family to completely remove the facility.
The woman noted that she borrowed $2.8 million from the bank to build the facility and she is still in the process of repaying that loan.
The construction of the facility was still in the process of being completed, when it was destroyed by the ministry.
Before she commenced construction of the building last year, Narine told Kaieteur News that she had received an approval from the Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC).
“We lost a lot…I don’t know if the government can help us out here, because if this supermarket was open we would have provided employment and the government would have benefited from it because we would have paid VAT and tax,” Narine said.
The woman’s only other means of income is farming, which is done by her husband, but she noted that it is not proving to be very profitable for the family at this time, since she has four children to take care of, two of whom are studying in Cuba.
“We have a lot of expenses and that’s why we are trying to make things easier.”
However, the family expressed their intention to pay the government for the reserve which they are allegedly vending on.
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