THE TABLES HAVE TURNED

May 08, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The controversy surrounding the Stabroek vendors is not going to go away so easily. There are far too many serious implications for the democratic governance in Guyana for this matter to simply be swept under the carpet.
Local government elections were supposed to restore democracy to City Hall. But can we really say that what is taking place in relation to the vendors is democracy.
During the previous council, there were complaints that the then Town Clerk was not complying with the instructions of the City Council. We were even told that the Town Clerk is a servant of the Council and therefore must do its bidding.
The question to be asked is whose bidding is the decision to remove the vendors from Stabroek Square. According to the previous argument, such an important decision cannot have been made by an officer of the Town Council. Such a major decision needed to have been made by the Council proper. So can someone find out when the Council met and when it took the decision to remove the vendors?
There are independent councilors on the Council. We have not heard from the representatives of Team Legacy or Team Benschop as to whether they were part of any decision to remove the vendors.
If these elected representatives of the people were not part of any Council meeting that agreed for the removal of the vendors, it needs to be asked just what is taking place within the municipality.
Who took the decision to remove the vendors? Did it come from within the Council or outside of the Council? Was it made at a full sitting of the Council or did a few councilors band together and decide that the vendors had to go.
At stake is the whole concept of local democracy. Local democracy starts in the polling booth, but it does not end there. The Council is supposed to be a meeting at which issues are discussed and ventilated. If the vendors issue was not discussed at a sitting of the Council, then can this decision be said to be democratic.
There has been a discovery which has angered City Hall. City Hall has found out that persons who have stalls in the Stabroek Market are vending on the pavements. This was deemed to be unfair competition.
What City Hall does not seem to recognize is that many persons who own stalls in the market have been forced to come out and vend on the pavements and roads because of the illegal vending outside of the markets, which is where the unfair competition originates.
Why would any shopper want to go inside the market to buy a product when you can obtain the same product on the pavements? Businesses along Regent Street are also being forced to sell on the pavement because if they do not, vendors will come and squat outside of their businesses.
The markets are becoming desert towns. People do not go in the market as much as before because everything is available outside. Established stallholders have lost customers, market share and may now lose their stalls, all because of the illegal vendors.
What is even more strange is the fact that when a former Town Clerk tried to move against illegal vendors in the same area, she was upbraided by some of the very persons who are now moving against the vendors.
In fact, a group of vendors were mobilized to try to put pressure on that Town Clerk to get her out of office. Now the tables have turned and it is the vendors who are at the receiving end. They should learn by now. They are being used by a government which seems to be doing everything at the last minute and doing it in a disorganized manner.

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THE TABLES HAVE TURNED

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THE TABLES HAVE TURNED

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