Dear Editor,
It is most certainly not a pleasant experience for shopping whenever it rains in the vicinity of the stelling at the Mahaica market on Saturdays. At best, it is simply repulsive. Here-under are some of the disturbing realities that would suffice to draw attention to the predicament faced by both vendors and shoppers at that location:
i. The area is unpaved.
ii. There are craters filled with water.
iii. The area is muddy.
iv. Shoppers have to jump/hop across or circumnavigate puddles of muddy water to move from one vendor to another.
v. Some shoppers avoid the hassle altogether of wading through the mud and water and as a consequence, the vendors in the second, third and fourth rows from the roadway lose sales.
vi. The vendors have to don long boots to stand in or wade through the mud as they sell.
vii. There is a solitary fish vendor amongst the other vendors who sell vegetables and not far from a bread and cake vendor (this is some 100 metres away from the designated area for the selling of fish).
Editor, it is unconscionable for the Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) to demand fees from the vendors who have to sell under the aforementioned conditions whenever it rains. The NDC needs to remedy that state of affairs, and quickly. This is the twenty-first century. Maybe the Health and Environmental departments need to take a look. For starters, the area needs to be paved.
Yours faithfully,
Bernel L.H. Wickham.
