RHONDOR DOWLAT
The Chaguanas Borough Corporation is owed more than $1 million on stall rental fees by vendors operating at the Chaguanas Market.
According to documents obtained by Guardian Media, the vendors who are required to pay a rental fee of $5 a day have not made payments since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some vendors owe over $15,000 in rent as far back as May 2014.
*Vendors on the ground floor with fruits and vegetable stalls/posts, are owing $884,925;
*Fish vendors (15) owe $66,600;
*Salt meat vendors owe $3,750;
*Tripe vendors owe $9,400;
*Beef vendors owe $14,000;
*Pork vendors owe $63,000;
*Crab vendors owe $20,400;
*Food vendors owe $20,750;
*Car park food booths vendors owe $23,500;
*Dry Goods vendors owe $92,750;
*Clothes & haberdashery vendors owe $160,700;
*Craft section owe $7,600;
*Food (first floor) owe $15,750;
*Open Area Food Court (first floor) owe $12,000.
These monies owed totalled $1,395,125 as of October 2022.
Mayor Faaiq Mohammed said the corporation will be making efforts to recover the monies owed.
Mohammed said he had heard through the grapevine that some vendors claimed they will not be paying the corporation, however, he said the necessary actions will be taken including possible eviction.
"It is a massive debt. It's over a million dollars and the corporation has passed a resolution where we will be doing something called a debt collection," Mohammed said.
He indicated that the debt-collection exercise was delayed as T&T was recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. "Due to COVID, we did not want to press the vendors as much. However, this coming year, as we are out of the pandemic and out of this COVID strain, we will look to implement such a collection.
"We have a human side with respect to this collection...we will do it via a payment plan and work with the vendors to decrease this debt," Mohammed said.
According to Mohammed, once the million-dollar debt is collected the monies will be reinvested into the market. "We will invest this into the market because from time to time you would hear market vendors complaining about the facility being run down. If we were to collect this we would have everyone up to standard and comfortable for customers and vendors."
Asked if there were any moves to raise rental fees in the future, Mohammed said no as they are standard rates as listed in the act.