Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Ven­dors op­er­at­ing at the Ch­agua­nas Mar­ket who fail to pay out­stand­ing mar­ket fees risk los­ing their vend­ing spaces, ac­cord­ing to Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed.

The warn­ing comes as ar­rears owed to the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion have climbed to more than $1 mil­lion, de­spite the dai­ly mar­ket fee re­main­ing at just $5.

Mo­hammed said the Cor­po­ra­tion had pre­vi­ous­ly ex­er­cised pa­tience and un­der­stand­ing due to the eco­nom­ic dif­fi­cul­ties faced by many ven­dors, but the grow­ing lev­el of un­paid fees was now af­fect­ing its abil­i­ty to main­tain and im­prove the mar­ket.

“Ven­dors who fail to pay their mar­ket fees risk los­ing their spaces,” Mo­hammed said. “This is not a po­si­tion we wish to take, but we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure fair­ness and the prop­er man­age­ment of the mar­ket.”

The May­or said mar­ket up­grades and main­te­nance re­quire fund­ing, and the con­tin­ued ac­cu­mu­la­tion of ar­rears is plac­ing ad­di­tion­al strain on the Cor­po­ra­tion’s re­sources.

He urged ven­dors to bring their pay­ments up to date, not­ing that im­prove­ments sought by ven­dors and shop­pers alike can on­ly be achieved through a shared com­mit­ment to meet­ing fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions.

“We all want a clean­er, safer and more mod­ern mar­ket, but that can on­ly be achieved when every­one does their part,” he said. “It is dif­fi­cult to de­mand up­grades and im­prove­ments while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly con­tribut­ing to the fi­nan­cial chal­lenges that hin­der those very im­prove­ments.”