Angry Tobago market vendors are demanding an urgent meeting with the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Farley Augustine.
The vendors demonstrated again yesterday calling on the management of the market to stop treating them with “gross disrespect” and engage them in consultation before making decisions that would impact their livelihoods.
Eileen Robinson, 65, said the system at the market was nothing short of “slavery”.
Robinson said she has been selling at the Scarborough Market for the past 40 years and the last two years were the worst she has encountered. Robinson, a resident of Bagatelle, said she started selling at a time when she had to ride the MV Panorama overnight to get goods in Trinidad and sleep on cardboard before making the return eight-hour trip to the sister isle.
“I used to sleep on a piece of cardboard with cockroaches all around me. Me had to sleep they to catch the boat to come back to sell. I have been doing this more than 40 years.”
Robinson said the vendors have no representative body and have to put up with the dictates of the management.
Robinson said vendors got word at the last minute that the facility would not be closed yesterday for sanitisation and many did not show up to sell. Robinson said the proposal to close the market on Mondays for sanitisation would displace many elderly vendors who would have to pack up their goods and vacate.
Robinson said she has to pay porters to remove her goods every time the facility closes for sanitation.
Vendor Lydia Joseph said the market can be sanitised after 6 pm when the facility closes.
Secretary for Agriculture in the THA, Nathisha Pantin-Charles said she heard the pleas of the vendors and she plans to meet with them and with the management of the market on Wednesday to chart the way forward.
