Bharath to focus on cutting cost of food; Debe vendors appeal for help

Vasant Bharath will focus on cutting food prices and lowering Trinidad and Tobago's food import bill.

The new Minister of Food Production told reporters that would top his agenda, saying that is in line with what the new Government wants to achieve.

In a brief meeting with staff he said he is confident that the ministry has "the requisite skills and competencies" to deal with the challenges of ahead.

He also pledged to support the agricultural sector.

But while he was meeting in Port of Spain with top officials vendors operating at National Marketing Development Co (Namdevco), Debe, were calling on him to intervene and stop the demolition of their permanent stalls.

A spokesman for the dozens of haberdashery vendors told the Trinidad Guardian the market administration served notice on them on April 15 and the stalls were knocked down last Friday, just days after the general election.

They said now they have to work from temporary, which are inconvenient.

The vendors say they have sold their goods at the market since it first opened some 15 years ago.

“Many of these vendors are single parents. This is how they earn their livelihood,” the spokesman said.

Namdevco’s chief executive officer Elbert Johnson said the authorities were acting on a court order.

“They took us to court for removing these unsightly structures which pose a great hazard, in terms of the whole health and safety issues we have to uphold, and they lost,” he said.

“What we are trying to do is to make the market safe for the vendors as well as the consumers. In no way do we intend to displace anyone from earning a livelihood,” he told the paper

Johnson said demolition of the stalls is the first phase of an upgrade to bring the market up to "acceptable standards".