…GT vending
In the unending battle against the Atlantic sweeping over Georgetown and washing it away, the powers that be have done a better job after building the seawall that started back in 1855 than against the vendors! They’ve swept over GT from the 1840s and have kept up their occupation in any location that shows increased pedestrian activity. The latest skirmish in the losing battle occurred ironically a couple of days ago on the very seawall where the Government has spent hundreds of millions to create an ambience that would be pleasing to the eyes – especially the eyes of tourists!
After the abolition of slavery, formerly enslaved women – following in the by-then hallowed tradition of their Sunday Market Day during slavery – -selling “provisions” grown in their yards and Provisions Ground – flocked to Georgetown to fill the demands of the growing populace. Some set up shops and permanent structures to ply their wares. But the Portuguese who’d arrived as indentured labourers soon established shops that received preferential credit from the merchants – and soon ousted them back to pavement vending. And this is where they’ve remained – and flourished – ever since.
Every government from the 19th century has tried to control the vending – but all have failed. Yet, GT remained a “Garden City” where families could “window shop” without being hassled off the pavements. After Independence, the PNC Government encouraged vendors – who were some of their most vociferous and rambunctious supporters. After Hamilton Green became Mayor in 1994, he ramped up this encouragement and the pavements of Georgetown’s commercial centre became impassable. In one egregious instance, the PPP Government in 2003 was forced to pay over $200 million for a waterfront property owned by Toolsie Persaud to set up vendors in a mall. But of course, all that came out of the initiative was a massive vendors arcade!! Your Eyewitness remembers economist and development planner Kenneth King coming up with a plan for ASCRIA that addressed matters from within – so to speak. It included transitioning vending to shopkeeping, but unfortunately, it went nowhere.
So what do we do?? Well, let’s take the seawall fiasco. How can anyone disagree with the Govt’s position that vending can continue – but must be regulated?? Well, the PNC can disagree to make political hay – and did!! And this is the dilemma of governance in Guyana. Even if the idea is good for the city – politics trumps all. And that’s where tough decisions gotta be made. Uncontrolled vending is only a symptom of the political logjam. Until the PNC’s M&CC takes control of the situation, new urban development will eventually provide alternative shopping venues for citizens and Georgetown will wither.
Along with its vendors! Sad but inevitable.
…and redefining politics
Yesterday was Prezzie’s birthday – his 44th. If one wants to look for landmarks of his birth – it was the same year Burnham rigged the 1980s elections and promulgated a new constitution to “legalise” his dictatorial powers. Born into a family where its matriarch was heavily involved since the 1960s in PPP politics in politicised Plantation Leonora, perhaps it was inevitable one of her descendants would follow in her footsteps – but climb higher!
A PYO activist since his teens, he sacrificed his education at UG, after High School at Saints – for the party. But he more than made up for that academically later. He became Min of Housing – with the added portfolio of Tourism, Trade and Industry – in 2009 and before his term ended in 2015, he’d broken all sorts of records in distributing house lots. His hands-on responsibilities made his academic education more embedded than those who only have “book” knowledge!!
Today, the excellence of His Excellence needs no burnishing. It speaks for itself!!
…the Marriott Sale
The news that the American investor who’d won the Marriott bid passed was a surprise to your Eyewitness. After all, the fella was only 62 as Burnham was when he passed. But then Burnham was under the knife!
