Camille Clarke

De­vant stands for St. James Mar­ket

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan and Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj vis­it­ed the St James Mar­ket yes­ter­day to hear the con­cerns of ven­dors, who are against a food court in the fa­cil­i­ty. Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing is propos­ing to open the food court to­mor­row. They toured the fa­cil­i­ty sep­a­rate­ly.

Ma­haraj de­scribed Lee Sing as "an en­tre­pre­neur of a self­ish na­ture, may­or of Port-of-Spain." He al­so met with the ven­dors on Tues­day at his min­istry in St Clair. Ma­haraj said yes­ter­day he briefed a lawyer who is ex­pect­ed to file an in­junc­tion on the ven­dors' be­half to­mor­row.

The ven­dors, he said, would seek the in­junc­tion to stop Lee Sing from go­ing ahead with his plan. The min­is­ter said he al­so would speak to Ram­bachan dur­ing to­day's Cab­i­net meet­ing. Ma­haraj added: "Clear­ly what we have seen here is an at­tack on the his­to­ry of T&T as well the stake­hold­ers in the food sec­tor.

"The his­tor­i­cal so­ci­ety said this site has been used 150 years con­tin­u­ous­ly since it was first con­struct­ed." He said the ven­dors were be­ing pushed out and rel­e­gat­ed be­hind a door. He said he would like to see the fa­cil­i­ty re­fur­bished. Ma­haraj added: "Com­mon sense doesn't con­cep­tu­alise what kind of mind would think of putting a food court here and putting the ven­dors be­hind a closed door and on the bread­line.

"He (Lee Sing) is now try­ing to push the ven­dors out. The min­istry has stake­hold­ers that in­cludes farm­ers and mar­ket ven­dors. "I en­cour­age any con­struc­tion to up­grade the fa­cil­i­ties but I don't know what kind of food court this is. I have seen many food courts all over Trinidad and this looks like the meat stall in the Ari­ma mar­ket."

He said the min­istry was con­cerned about hav­ing the ven­dors in an en­vi­ron­ment con­ducive to busi­ness. Ma­haraj said Lee Sing had done "many things that I? have not in­ter­fered with, such as the traf­fic plan, but when it comes to the Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion, I have a very ter­ri­to­r­i­al ap­proach."

Hours af­ter Ram­bachan met the ven­dors, he wrote to Lee Sing urg­ing him to re­con­sid­er his de­ci­sion on the food court. "From my ex­am­i­na­tion of the premis­es, the long-stand­ing ven­dors are be­ing dis­ad­van­taged in terms of where they are be­ing placed," Ram­bachan's let­ter said. He stat­ed the re­strooms and stalls were in­ad­e­quate and it was nec­es­sary to sep­a­rate meat from the veg­eta­bles.

The let­ter added: "It is my view that your ac­tions will dis­crim­i­nate against the long­stand­ing ven­dors. "I have al­so no­ticed that yard space of the mar­ket is be­ing oc­cu­pied by a trans­former to ser­vice the build­ing next door. "I urge you to cur­tail your de­ci­sion to ar­bi­trar­i­ly and uni­lat­er­al­ly re­move the long­stand­ing ven­dors from their cur­rent po­si­tions."

Ven­dors speak

Spokesman for the ven­dors Patrick Maraj said there were 17 ven­dors at the mar­ket. He said: "Peo­ple all the way from Ch­aguara­mas come here for beef, pork and fish. This is the time I make my mon­ey and every­body wants a piece of pork for the Christ­mas. "He is try­ing to shove us out and the loss, es­pe­cial­ly this sea­son, will be thou­sands of dol­lars."

Maraj claimed Lee Sing did not con­sult with the ven­dors. Robert Tardieu, a busi­ness­man who as­so­ciates with the ven­dors, said the St James am­phithe­atre was des­ig­nat­ed for a food court three years ago. He said no ven­dor on the streets or in the mar­ket was told about any changes that would be made.