City Hall finalising policy to regulate vending in Georgetown

The Mayor and City Council of Georgetown on Thursday met with vendors in the compound of City Hall where a new policy for vending across the city was announced.

The policy will see the vendors clad in uniform and placed at strategic locations. The policy, which is in its final stage of preparation, will ensure vendors are given adequate spaces which will be appropriately marked off.

Vendors will be registered, given Identification badges to wear, and on these badges, their allotted space number will be visible.

During the meeting with vendors under the theme, ‘Keeping vending neat, clean and organised,’ Kurt Clarke, the Senior Supervisor in the tax section of City Hall acknowledged the financial strain the vendors have been operating under given the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, he noted that vendors have not been paying their fees to the city – an issue City Hall has been grappling with for years.

Clarke urged the vendors that they must pay their revenue fees. He also pleaded with them to respectfully comply with the officers and avoid being difficult, as those fees are used to improve their vending environment.

“Those fees are just user fees, it’s not a fee where the council makes a profit. Those fees goes into many areas in terms of sanitation, paying contractors and many other works,” Clarke said.

Meanwhile, Mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine in his address to the vendors, assured them that he will stand with them and represent them. However, in doing so, vendors must play their part and keep their surroundings clean, the Mayor urged.

“I want you to keep your environment clean and well organised, I want you to do that as vendors,” Narine pleaded.

He assured he will not allow anyone to remove them because he knows vending is their bread and butter.

Meanwhile, Dwayne Hicks, who has been vending on the Stabroek Market for the past 32 years, expressed confidence in Mayor Narine and so, he anticipates the new policy and hopes it will bring about some change to the city of Georgetown.

While vendors were accused of littering the environment, they did not take the blame, and instead, noted that it is the bigger stores that pay persons to dump garbage in the area.