Dear Editor,
I live in Parika and have seen Parika market grow and stretch to become nearly a mile long on both sides of the road from Parika Stelling through Hydronie and heading to Bushy Park. After a number of years the market has become more than a market, it has become more like a fair since it would start from the evening before the actual market day i.e. Saturday evening and go straight through the night until Sunday at 15:00hrs. It has become a tourist attraction for those passing through. All that has changed recently, a new $63m tarmac was constructed and all the vendors were bundled into that with little or no order.
Why is it that right across Guyana all the new or refurbished markets look like shanties or large slums, a breeding place for rats, roaches, and other species of vermin.
In Skeldon, Port Mourant, Rose Hall, New Amsterdam, Mon Repos it is horrible, not forgetting Mahaica. I was in Lethem and Lethem, Bartica, Anna Regina and Charity, even Leonora are not attractive. Some markets have been constructed badly in the first place and it will take a lot of money and time to change that. But why build a new market and retain the same disadvantages of the old ones.
Give the vendors some kind of order, recommend a style in which to build their stalls, a certain dimension, shape, height, length and even colour or let the contractor construct the stalls, not anybody build whatever they feel like. Set out various sections of the market for meats, dry goods, fabrics, ground provisions, greens etc., not anybody anywhere, that is chaos.
I truly hope that those in authority can make the necessary changes; if they need a model they can take a look at Merriman’s Mall.
Yours faithfully,
Elvis Jones
