Mayor promises improved drainage at Bourda but wait continues for market feasibility studies

As the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) continues its efforts to address the overcrowding of vendors in the city, focus is being placed on Bourda Market where drainage and irrigation concerns are worsening.

Mayor Alfred Mentore, during a telephone interview with the News Room on Tuesday, said the feasibility studies to improve marketplaces in the city are well underway. In the meantime, the Bourda Market drainage situation is being prioritised.

“That is the market we will be approaching first because we want to build that over.

“In the interim we made some decisions to treat with the drainage and look at the washing and cleaning of the Bourda market itself,” the Mayor said.

Bourda Market is one of the busiest markets in the city with tourists oftentimes visiting there. However, garbage collection, drainage and overcrowding has steadily been an issue there.

Mentore said these are issues that the City Council is actively trying to resolve. In this regard, there are feasibility studies ongoing to make the Stabroek Market Bazaar and the Vendors’ Arcade more spacious.

Mentore said the Bourda Market will also be among the markets that will replicate a system adopted from Ghana after the study is completed and deemed workable here.

The focus on overcrowding of vendors along paves and streets has been a long standing complaint but it became further highlighted last year after a High Court Order mandated vendors who ply their trade outside the Muneshwers Limited Building at Water and Commerce Streets, Georgetown, to remove structures from the area.

The court order was granted by Chief Justice (ag) Roxanne George and though it was made in November, 2023, it wasn’t until January that the vendors were removed.

The M&CC has said its current efforts are to ensure that vending outside businesses is re-adjusted to markets to ensure that all traffic leads back to the main shopping areas and do not inconvenience these businesses.