Revenue collection from city markets up to $180m last year from $130m in 2005

Clerk of Markets Schulder Griffith has told Stabroek Business that the revenue collected from stallholders and vendors is sufficient to meet the cost of maintaining Georgetown’s five municipal markets and wants the City Council to “plough back” those funds directly into providing services for the facilities.

Revenue collected as stall rents from the municipal markets at Stabroek, Bourda, La Penitence, Ruimveldt and Kitty accrues to the municipality where decisions on disbursement are made by its Finance Committee. However, Griffith told Stabroek Business that if conditions at the municipal markets are to improve his department has to be able to make timely decisions that involve expenditure on market-related services. “Unfortunately, while we are aware of the services that need to be put in place and, in cases, improved and how to go about improving those services, spending approval is dependent on the Council,” Griffith told Stabroek Business.

The Clerk of Markets disclosed that last year revenue collected from the city’s municipal markets increased by around $50m, from around $130m in 2005 to $180m but that only around $103m was expended on providing services to markets in 2006. Griffith said that while the municipal markets recently benefited from a $190m rehabilitation programme under the Urban Development Project ongoing services including sanitation and security still required funding.

The crime wave of recent years has been one of the major preoccupations of the business community and Griffith told Stabroek Business that his department was facing increasingly strident demands from stallholders for “beefed up” security. “Apart from legitimate sellers and buyers our municipal markets attract all sorts of influences and the security issue is certainly one of our bigger challenges,” he added. The Clerk of Markets believes that the service provided by the City Police is inadequate to meet the needs of the municipal markets and said that further “permanent” Guyana Police Force presence in the vicinity of the markets – particularly the Stabroek Market- is necessary.

Last week Stabroek Business spoke with several members of the Stabroek Market Stallholders Association most of whom say they are concerned with the ongoing security problems associated with trading in the market. The stallholders say that apart from the need for a strong police presence in the area to discourage persons who have no legitimate business in the vicinity of the market the support of the courts was necessary to enforce the laws governing loitering. “The courts continue to be lenient with loitering offences,” one stallholder told Stabroek Business.

Concerns about security and other issues at municipal markets come in wake of the city’s preparations to host visitors for the March 2007 Cricket World Cup and Griffith said that efforts to make Stabroek market, the city’s 125 year-old urban landmark, attractive for tourists had to be supported by security arrangements that reduced the risk of unsavoury incidents. The Clerk of Markets is due to meet shortly with the Cricket World Cup Local Organizing Committee to discuss the issue of municipal markets as an attraction for CWC visitors.

Work has already begun on the enhancement of the Stabroek market area. Vendors occupying the section of the tarmac facing Demico House are now required to conduct their trading from collapsible stalls and Griffith said that beginning next week work will begin to clear the entrances to the market, an exercise that could involve the dispersal of a number of itinerant vendors who ply their trade in the area.

Asked whether the pre-Cricket World Cup “sprucing up” exercise included the rehabilitation of the Water Street vendors’ arcade (The Toolsie Persaud arcade) – which falls under the administration of the Clerk of Markets – Griffith said that while he was aware of a private sector-led project to “give attention” to the arcade he did not envisage that any major renovation or rehabilitation work would be undertaken at the arcade before Cricket World Cup.

According to Griffith the administrative responsibilities associated with managing the city markets continue to grow more challenging in view of their increasing popularity as places of business. Currently, 5,000 stallholders occupy stalls both inside the buildings housing the markets and on the various arcades and other external municipal facilities. Bourda Market accommodates 2,604 stallholders and vendors – mostly on the “Bourda Green” – while Stabroek Market accommodates 1,591 stallholders and vendors. Apart from legitimate stallholders the municipal markets also attracted a number of additional itinerant vendors seeking to take advantage of its strategic significance of markets as a place of trading.

While Griffith says that the number of persons visiting the Stabroek Market has been increasing in recent years stallholders say that the volume of trading in the market may have “dropped off” as a result of security concerns among potential buyers. A stallholder who has been trading at the Stabroek Market told Stabroek Business that the market has come to be regarded by criminals as a “soft target.”

Asked about the role of the City Police in providing a security service at the market stallholders said that the ineffectiveness of the City Police had become a source of frustration and that given the volume of trading associated with the market a Guyana Police Force presence was necessary.