Congestion at Port Kaituma waterfront to be addressed

The Region One (Barima-Waini) Administration is looking to convert an abandoned bond in Central Port Kaituma into a market, to relocate some of the vendors from the community’s congested waterfront.

Region One Chairman Brentnol Ashley said the Regional Administration was working to bring order to the waterfront by relocating some of the vendors who ply their trade in the area.

“We are hoping to between 2016 and early 2017, we can have the organising of the Port Kaituma waterfront, because, it is congested, and most of the structures that are there are illegal,” Ashley told the Government Information Agency (GINA).

The Chairman added that many of the vendors in the area are those who did not “have the permission to construct, nor do they have the lease for the lands that they want to construct on”.

Ashley explained to GINA that the Region’s Administration would work with the Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) to relocate the vendors, with serious consideration being given to the use of the old abandoned Barama Company bond, and the unused large cassava mills for their placement.

“One of the things is to work with the NDC, and the NDC to work with the people,” Ashley said. “… we cannot displace people, and we have nowhere to put them, and so in central Port Kaituma, there is a clear brick bond that the Barama company would have built some time ago, that was abandoned. The RDC is going to work with the NDC and also the Ministry of Public Infrastructure to see how best we could resuscitate that bond and make it into a market for the people so they can move from that area and, hence, give us the space to make a better plan for the community,” Ashley said.

The NDC has already informed the vendors of the move to bring order to the waterfront.

“I know for a fact that the NDC would have met with the people at the greens market, the stallholders at the bus stop, and they would have started writing letters to various persons informing them (of the relocation). This most likely will be the way forward and to advise them that they would have the time to ensure that they dismantle, and at the same time, looking at ways and places that we could correct the situation,” Ashley said.

As a result of the congestion of vendors at the waterfront, the flow of traffic in the area is greatly affected. The area also suffers from flooding, owing to drains clogged by the careless disposal of waste from the market or vendors constructing structures over the drains.