SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Dis­grun­tled ven­dors op­er­at­ing out of the Scar­bor­ough Mar­ket in To­ba­go, say pol­i­cy de­ci­sions by the mar­ket ad­min­is­tra­tion are pre­vent­ing them from earn­ing a liv­ing. 

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, mar­ket ven­dor Ly­dia Joseph said be­tween 6 and 9am, on­ly one per­son at a time was al­lowed in­to the fa­cil­i­ty.

"There was no­body in the mar­ket be­cause all the mar­ket gates were locked, up to nine, ten o’clock,” she said.  “They were let­ting peo­ple in one at a time, the busiest day of the year."

She said peo­ple were lin­ing up out­side the mar­ket to get in, and cus­tomers got frus­trat­ed and left.

Joseph said when she called oth­er ven­dors to look at the process, the se­cu­ri­ty threat­ened to throw her out of the mar­ket.

"I called two oth­er ven­dors to take a look at the gates.  All the gates were locked, peo­ple were lined up to en­ter the mar­ket and I was told that if I do that again, I would be thrown out of the mar­ket,” she said.  “I have the right to ex­er­cise my rights to show oth­er ven­dors why there was no­body in the mar­ket."

Market vendor Lydia Joseph speaks with Guardian Media on Thursday outside the Scarborough Market. (Image: VINDRA GOPAUL)

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Joseph said she went to the mar­kets at Tu­na­puna and Ma­coya in Trinidad on Wednes­day:

"Peo­ple were climb­ing up on each oth­er.  They keep lock­ing down the mar­ket, they say it’s be­cause of COVID.  My ques­tion is, how much of the se­cu­ri­ty guards have tak­en their vac­cines?"

She said ven­dors have to com­pete with gro­cery stores and whole­salers who trade at re­tail prices.  Not­ing that the mar­ket has around 200 ven­dors, she said, "there is no­body to sell to."

Nathisha Pan­tin-Charles, Sec­re­tary for Food Se­cu­ri­ty, Nat­ur­al Re­sources, the En­vi­ron­ment and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment on the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, told Guardian Me­dia that she would in­ves­ti­gate the ven­dor's claims im­me­di­ate­ly.

Sec­re­tary Pan­tin-Charles said the open­ing hours at the mar­ket had been ex­tend­ed from 6 am to 6 pm, so both con­sumers and ven­dors could ben­e­fit.

Alez­moy Mc Ken­zie, Corp Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Of­fi­cer at the Di­vi­sion for Food Se­cu­ri­ty, Nat­ur­al Re­sources, the En­vi­ron­ment and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment ex­plained that mea­sures were put in place on Thurs­day morn­ing be­cause of a large in­flux of con­sumers. Mc Ken­zie said all of this was done in a bid to con­trol the spread of COVID. She said once the crowd dis­si­pat­ed the sit­u­a­tion re­turned to nor­mal.

Mc Ken­zie al­so not­ed the open­ing hours at the mar­ket would be ex­tend­ed from 6 am to 8 pm on Christ­mas Eve, and from 6 am to 2 pm on Christ­mas day.