City Hall collects over $2M in registration fee from street vendors

Some 795 roadside vendors are now registered with City Hall after being told they must comply and pay a registration fee of $3000.

The Council’s income would be boosted by over $2M from this move even with more unregistered street vendors still to be added to that database.

It was late January when Town Clerk, Royston King announced that all street vendors within the City had to be registered with the Mayor and City Council by the end of February 2017.

City Hall is yet to make an announcement if there will be an extension for vendors to be registered.

The vendors were required to produce their National Identification Card or Passport, Tax Identification Number Certificate along with two passport-sized photographs.

News Room was informed by City Hall’s Public Relations Department that the aim of the exercise is to have a proper database of such vendors within the City and acts as a control mechanism.

The PR Department assured that plans are in the pipeline to erect new facilities such as another vendor’s mall and the long awaited double decker Stabroek Bazaar.

Ever since the announcement, Guyana Market Vendors Union President, Eon Andrews wanted City Hall to justify why vendors were required to pay the $3000.

Andrews said City Hall seems to have a fixation on vendors which he feels have no plan as to how they must treat such small entrepreneurs.

Andrews is suggesting that the Council goes after those wealthy property owners who owe the City Council millions of dollars.