KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As a back­hoe, crew, and clean­ing equip­ment rolled in­to the Mara­bel­la Mar­ket yes­ter­day morn­ing to tack­le a se­ries of long­stand­ing prob­lems, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris said he was hope­ful that the im­prove­ments would en­cour­age res­i­dents to re­turn to tra­di­tion­al shop­ping for fresh pro­duce.

Ven­dors were asked to stay away dur­ing the day­long sani­ti­sa­tion ex­er­cise, which took place on one of the mar­ket’s slow­er trad­ing days. For months, they had com­plained to the city ad­min­is­tra­tion and coun­cil­lors about poor con­di­tions, in­clud­ing leak­ing tar­pau­lins, par­tial­ly clogged drains, un­kempt wash­rooms, and un­san­i­tary fish and meat sec­tions. An ex­ter­nal en­ti­ty is as­sist­ing with paving the car park.

Par­ris said some of these is­sues will go be­fore the coun­cil to de­cide the best way for­ward. He added that while many res­i­dents now pre­fer su­per­mar­kets, the mar­ket still of­fers fresh­er items at more af­ford­able prices.

Stress­ing the mar­ket’s im­por­tance to lo­cal liveli­hoods, Par­ris said many peo­ple earn a liv­ing sell­ing pro­duce there. With sub­sidised rental rates, some ven­dors even op­er­ate mul­ti­ple stalls.

“The su­per­mar­ket has to make a prof­it, so there might be a high­er markup. In com­ing to the tra­di­tion­al mar­ket with­in the var­i­ous cor­po­ra­tions, it is ob­vi­ous­ly cost-ef­fec­tive, and there­fore, we en­cour­age peo­ple to still use the tra­di­tion­al mar­kets,” Par­ris said.

Al­though some shop­pers may find mar­kets less ap­peal­ing, Par­ris said stan­dards have im­proved in re­cent years. The San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion (SFCC) has re­placed some iron ta­bles with con­crete stalls af­ter the Pub­lic Health De­part­ment raised san­i­ta­tion con­cerns. He ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that the cor­po­ra­tion needs to im­prove its com­mu­ni­ca­tion with stake­hold­ers to en­sure the pub­lic is aware of such changes.

Par­ris al­so re­vealed that 14 for­mer CEPEP work­ers have been hired to as­sist with clean­ing the Mara­bel­la Mar­ket, Har­ris Prom­e­nade, City Hall, and lo­cal ceme­ter­ies, a move aimed at eas­ing their fi­nan­cial bur­den fol­low­ing the pro­gramme’s clo­sure. The SFCC plans to con­tin­ue us­ing the work­ers to im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy in city main­te­nance.

How­ev­er, with re­duced gov­ern­ment al­lo­ca­tions, the may­or ad­mit­ted the cor­po­ra­tion may strug­gle to main­tain its full work­force.

He said the SFCC’s abil­i­ty to ex­pand or up­grade mar­kets de­pends heav­i­ly on fund­ing from Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment. Par­ris not­ed that res­i­dents had hoped lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form and the es­tab­lish­ment of the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty would al­low the cor­po­ra­tion to col­lect prop­er­ty tax­es di­rect­ly, re­duc­ing bu­reau­cra­cy.

“That isn’t the case, and there­fore, we have to be cre­ative with what­ev­er al­lo­ca­tions we have. We ask the pub­lic to be pa­tient with us. Cer­tain­ly, in the city of San Fer­nan­do, we do not print our own mon­ey. We are heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on tax­pay­ers’ sup­port and the cur­rent sys­tem as it ex­ists.”

Par­ris hopes that for the 2026 mid-year bud­get re­view, the Gov­ern­ment will con­sid­er re­leas­ing prop­er­ty tax­es al­ready col­lect­ed to the cor­po­ra­tions, as the SFCC’s cur­rent al­lo­ca­tion is al­most de­plet­ed.

He ac­knowl­edged that ef­fi­cien­cy mea­sures and cost-cut­ting may be­come nec­es­sary, pos­si­bly af­fect­ing work­ing hours and ben­e­fits, but he hopes no one will lose their job.

“That is one of the most heart-wrench­ing is­sues that we are faced with cur­rent­ly, but we are res­olute in be­ing ef­fec­tive as a unit­ed coun­cil.”

Par­ris re­called a meet­ing ear­li­er this year with Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen, where of­fi­cials asked about the col­lect­ed prop­er­ty tax­es.

“At that time, she stat­ed to us, ‘Just hold your hands.’ So we trust that the min­is­ter has a plan for that mon­ey that was col­lect­ed, and hope­ful­ly it will as­sist in the op­er­a­tion and man­age­ment of the var­i­ous cor­po­ra­tions through­out the coun­try.”