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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Mayor to vendors: PoS losing its shine

by

20100913

Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing says the City Cor­po­ra­tion would em­bark up­on its dri­ve to clean and beau­ti­fy the cap­i­tal "with or with­out the co-op­er­a­tion of the ven­dors."

Lee Sing al­so spoke about fa­cil­i­ties and booths that he would es­tab­lish on be­half of the ven­dors. He made these com­ments dur­ing a meet­ing with about 100 ven­dors on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. Dur­ing the di­a­logue and dis­cus­sions about vend­ing, re­lo­ca­tion, san­i­ta­tion and va­grancy, pres­i­dent of the Ven­dors' As­so­ci­a­tion Mel­ba Box­hill was adamant that ven­dors would not be mov­ing from Char­lotte Street to City Gate. But as the meet­ing wound to a close, Lee Sing had the last word. He said: "Ul­ti­mate­ly, the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the man­age­ment, lead­er­ship and con­trol of the city rests with the of­fice of the may­or and it is our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure there is a bet­ter-qual­i­ty city.

"And, whether, the ven­dors ap­pre­ci­ate it or not that is the di­rec­tion in which we will be mov­ing. "It was not about vend­ing on Char­lotte Street alone, but, across the city." But dur­ing the meet­ing, he said, his ap­proach was "de­mo­c­ra­t­ic" and he in­vit­ed ten peo­ple to air their con­cerns. He al­so sug­gest­ed they write their com­ments and he would re­spond to it. Lee Sing said: "When I went to school in Ja­maica. I saw Ja­maica be­come two cities. Old Kingston and New Kingston. Port-of-Spain for some rea­son is los­ing its shine."

'Grow your busi­ness'

Ze­ro­ing on the dis­cus­sion about the fa­cil­i­ties, Lee Sing made ref­er­ence to his fi­nan­cial acu­men and vi­sion as pres­i­dent of the East­ern Cred­it Union. He said: "I have al­ways en­cour­aged peo­ple to have busi­ness­es. "I do not want to put you in a place with no toi­lets and no fa­cil­i­ties. I want to put you in a place where you can grow your busi­ness and your chil­dren can take it over. "To those of you who think Char­lotte Street is the utopia... I am go­ing to put prop­er 8x10 stores, not ply­wood, in a good high-traf­fic area. "I am say­ing to you that if you open your eyes. It is go­ing to be done in a struc­tured way."

Dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion, Box­hill said: "We build Char­lotte Street and we make Char­lotte Street. We pay­ing our mon­ey. If you want to fix... fix the dou­bles ven­dors, the pa­pers man but leave the ven­dors on Char­lotte Street. The for­mer may­or (Murchi­son Brown) fix us there. We not go­ing to move." Box­hill's pro­nounce­ments were greet­ed with a round of ap­plause and vo­cif­er­ous sup­port by fel­low ven­dors.

New pro­pos­al

Re­ly­ing on slides, Raul Poon Kong out­lined the pro­pos­al for the re­lo­ca­tion of the ven­dors. The first pro­pos­al–re­turn the mar­ket to Char­lotte Street. Sec­ond pro­pos­al–George, Cha­con and Hen­ry Street be opened to vend­ing. "We are look­ing at City Gate. There should be more vend­ing where the traf­fic is." About 300,000 cit­i­zens en­ter the city and 200,000 en­ter and ex­it via City Gate, Port-of-Spain.


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