The state of health of municipal markets is often a useful barometer of the economic outlook in the community in which that market is located. Earlier this week, that appeared to be very much the case at the Number 79 Municipal Market, Corriverton Market as it is known, where a marked scarcity of consumers had cast a pall of gloom on the trading environment.
Kavita has been a seafood vendor at the market for a decade and she paints a less than encouraging picture of the prevailing commercial climate in Corriverton. When we met her at her fish table inside the market on Tuesday she had arrived from her home in Clonbrook several hours earlier. She was fussing over the fact that with the 1300 hours closing time fast approaching she was still struggling to sell about half a pail of fish – tilapia and banga mary. She had bought the tilapia at $5000 a pail and banga mary at $6000.00 a pail. The market was beginning to slow down markedly and she was staring ruefully at the unsold fish and contemplating the inconvenience of having to place it in cold storage for the next day’s trading.
The Corriverton Market had been Commissioned by the then President Bharrat Jagdeo in
