The business class is fighting back!

Jan 30, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – Guyana was fortunate to host 6 matches for the T20 World Cup slated to be hosted in the Caribbean and the USA in June of this year. Guyana will host five preliminary matches and one semifinal.

Guyana was lucky to snare a semifinal game. Had the organizers taken a walk down Regent Street or near the iconic Stabroek Market, they may have pulled all the matches from Guyana.

The situation with illegal pavement and roadside vending has become so deplorable that it will eventually threat Guyana’s ability to host international matches.  Who wants to come to Guyana to have to experience the disorder and chaos that has crept over the capital city because of the illegal vending situation?

The situation with illegal vending has been allowed to get totally out of control. Many illegal vendors now feel that they have an entitlement to set up shop wherever and whenever they want. And they have forced in the country that egg them on.

Vendors are now of the opinion that because they have been given approval to vend and because they pay a cleaning fee to the municipality that this legitimizes their operations. It does not..

Two of the readymade excuses that have been made in the past are about many of the vendors being single parents and whether those who want them removed are forcing them into criminality. But how does that justify illegal vending in any part of the world?

The landscape of vending has changed from the time when it was small hucksters making a hustle. If you drive down Regent Street early in the morning, you would be surprised at the amount of vendors who own their vehicles and who drive and park on that street.

People are now of the opinion that they can simply go and prop themselves anywhere to sell. And most of these vendors are not poor people. But within the vending establishment, there has also been a significant change. The majority of the persons who are vending in front of businesses on the roads and parapets are not poor people.

Poor people do not possess millions of dollars in stocks and do not turnover hundreds of thousands of dollars each week.  Poor people cannot afford to spend millions of dollars to build and outfit food caravans. Poor people cannot afford the cost of a canter from which to do business. Poor people cannot afford some of the equipment that is being used in roadside food vending.

Elements within the lower middle class are taking over vending. These are not poor persons; they have substantial assets and they are taking over the vending on pavements parapets and on the roadside where, in some cases, permanent businesses are being established.

Georgetown will die unless the situation is remedied. It is now a free-for-all in the city. There is no progress to be had in running a city in this manner.

It is not safe at all to venture on to Georgetown’s crowded pavements. Walking with a haversack is now a high-risk activity. The encroachment by illegal vendors creates an environment in which robbers thrive. The vendors’ illegal structures and its accoutrements obscure criminal acts from the view of public spirited citizens, some of whom may be inclined to come to the rescue of victims.

One letter writer has described walking on our overrun pavements as walking through a dark hole. This column has said it is like traversing a gauntlet, one that is becoming increasingly dangerous.

Illegal vending is also hurting the financial fortunes of City Hall. Illegal vending has cast a shadow over the City’s markets and businesses. The inside of our markets are now like ghosts towns with numerous abandoned stalls. It’s a bitter irony that those who contribute their fair share – the legal vendors within the market – are suffocated by those operating outside the bounds of legality. Illegal vending is the culprit because shoppers no longer have to enter the markets to get items; everything is now available on the pavements and roadsides.

Some of the large companies in Guyana are being forced to move to the courts to have the illegal vendors removed from in front of their premises. This action is belated but will be welcome by the tens of thousands of shoppers who refuse to go anywhere near downtown because of the situation on our pavements.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Caribbean, Guyana, Peeping Tom, T20 World Cup, vendors

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