Dear Editor,
Recently, Demerara Waves and the Guyana Chronicle carried articles which reported on a statutory meeting of the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown and what was said by council officials in relation to the state and future of the Kitty Market.
We, the stallholders and vendors of Kitty Market are major stakeholders in that entity. We have invested tremendously in the market and are paying keen attention to what is said, particularly by the council and its officials and by representatives of central government, on the market. We are always encouraged when the market attracts public attention be it positive or negative. We have taken the position that this attention will contribute in some way to our more than two decades of struggle to have the market rehabilitated.
We find the remarks that were carried by both media houses which were attributed to Town Clerk Royston King and Deputy Mayor Chase-Green, to be extremely worrying since both are senior and longstanding officials of the Georgetown City Council and ought to have knowledge of agreements arrived at ages ago between the Kitty Market stallholders/vendors, Mayor Hamilton Green and the council, on the way forward for the market.
We are concerned that Town Clerk Royston King, feels free to call on the council to make a decision to relocate vendors and stallholders without seeing the need to have a prior discussion with the occupants of the market who will be the ones most seriously affected by the implementation of such a decision.
We are also amazed and shocked that the Town Clerk was quoted as saying the council is trying to find a study that was done years ago dealing with conditions of the market structure. Mr King ought to be aware of the recent inspection and report on the market that was carried out by the Ministry of Local Government a few months before the May 11, 2015 General and Regional Elections. That report addressed the issue of the structure of the market and concluded that the market can be rehabilitated, and there was no need to pull it down.
This was the professional opinion of the engineers who carried out the study. Mr King is just being dishonest if he is pretending to be ignorant of the existence of this study. Now that he is reminded of it I wish to use this opportunity to urge him to get close to the report so that he can refresh his memory on the information contained therein.
The statement made by Deputy Mayor Chase-Green, seems to be a rehashing of an age old position of the council, “the council wanted the job to go to public tender so that anyone who was interested in rehabilitating the structure, or at least portions of it, could come forward with a proposal which the Markets and Public Health Committee would have to review”.
We are also concerned that both the Deputy Mayor and the Town Clerk have demonstrated ignorance, of the agreement reached with Mayor Green and the city council on the way forward to get the market rehabilitated. Both parties are on record as having sent joint letters to two former presidents requesting central government’s financial support to repair the market.
Given the deceit being demonstrated by those in authority at City Hall and for the knowledge of the present council and any future council, we the Kitty Market Action Committee restate our position on the way forward for the market, which was made public in our June 2013 press statement. “Our position that the Kitty Market should be repaired and maintained as a municipal market because of its historic importance is a reasonable one, in light of the years of suffering which we, the Kitty Market stall-holders endured while paying rent for use of the market to the council:
“(1) Demand that urgent steps be taken by the Mayor and City Council and Central Government to save the historic Kitty Market, so that it continues to serve residents of Kitty and surrounding communities.
“(2) We are opposed to any form of privitisation of the market.
“(3) Restate our conviction not to support the sale of the market, since we have no mandate from the people of the community to do so. The land on which the market was built was private property donated to the community for the market.
“(4) Demand that the IDB money which was given for repairs of the market and utilized by the government to promote World Cup Cricket should be used for the rehabilitation of the market.
“(5) Appeal for solidarity and support from all national stake holders, Guyanese living overseas, regional and international agencies, to join our advocacy to save the historic Kitty Market.”
Yours faithfully,
Tacuma Ogunseye
