Several city vendors who ply their trade along the pavement of Regent Street armed themselves with placards and candles on Monday night as they launched a soulful protest outside the Cambellville home of Town Clerk Carol Sooba.
The vendors sang hymns and lit candles as part of a vigil to bring attention to the latest move by the Town Clerk to have them removed from the Regent Street area. Some of the vendors have been working in the area for over a decade and believe that the any move to remove them is unjust.
“I have been selling out there for the past 15 years”, one vendor said, while explaining that she believes the Town Clerk and the City Council needs to under the plight of many of the Regent Street vendors.
The woman who asked for her name not to be published because she fears victimization told News Source that the Town Clerk appears to have no understanding of the work they do and the reason they do it. She said “this woman come and like she don’t understand the system, she is jumping the guns. We have bills to pay, we owe Courts, and she just come and is behaving like a bully”.
Another vendor who said he has been working in the Regent Street area for over 10 years said he cannot understand why “foreigners are being treated better than Guyanese right here in Guyana”. The man explained that he provides for his family from vending along the busy district and he does not intend to move any time soon.
The vendors have found support in some members of the Georgetown City Council. People’s National Congress Councillor Gregory Fraser said the Town Clerk needs to better understand the vending situation in Georgetown and it is more than moving the vendors from one place to another.
He said it appears as though the Town Clerk is taking it upon herself to make decisions for the entire Mayor and Town Council. According to Councillor Fraser, the Town Clerk seems adamant that “the vendors must go and I don’t know if when they put her there, she was told to disturb all the vendors in the streets”.
He said the issue of vending along the streets of Georgetown is a situation that ought to be looked at carefully and no one person should operate as if they can solve the problem. He said he is in support of some regularization but the vendors must not be displaced without careful considerations to the reality many of them face.
The Town Clerk and the Mayor and City Council have been going at each other over several issues related to municipal matters. On two occasions, there have been attempts to get rid of the Town Clerk via no confidence motions.
The Town Clerk has made it clear in the past that she intends to focus on her job and pay attention to accountability at the City Council.
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