By Telesha Ramnarine

WHEN a team from City Hall, including Deputy Mayor Sherod Duncan, visited Stabroek Market on Saturday, top officials of the City Constabulary Department were embarrassed by vendors who pointed them out as demanding bribes from them. “Look he deh right deh. Meh give he $5000,” one vendor told the team while pointing to the officer. Numerous complaints were reportedly received on the issue of bribery.
A source, who spoke to the Chronicle on condition of anonymity, said the officers who were pointed out simply turned their faces and didn’t respond.Vendors complained of having to pay $1000 and sometimes $2000 to the constabulary officers on a weekly basis, the source informed this newspaper.Following the visit, the Deputy Mayor said on a Facebook post: “Vendors expressed a list of concerns. We hope that our effort can produce a relevant vending policy that fits the needs of the progressive city we aspire to.”
The team, including members of the City Council’s Markets and Public Health Committee, visited several areas including Stabroek Market, the Parliament View Market, and Water Street, in an effort to engage vendors on their concerns. The intention is to have a policy on vending established.Just recently, vendors at the various markets in Georgetown complained about the harassment they regularly experience at the hands of City Constables.Many of them prefer not to make reports of these instances as they claim those in higher authority also accept bribes. “So how you gon try the devil case in hell?” one vendor had told the Guyana Chronicle.

REPORT THEM
But Chief Constable Andrew Foo is adamant that those vendors who are affected by bribery on the part of the constabulary officers ought to lodge official reports, and he guaranteed that such will be investigated.Provision is made in the law that even those who give a bribe can be charged, Foo had told this newspaper.Foo said vendors need to understand if any officer demands a bribe, they have a responsibility to report it.“But they don’t come in. There is an agreement between the vendors and officers, but whenever the officers have to act, the vendors come up with all sorts of allegations. Now that there is a large-scale movement of people, they are now raising allegations. People who give and receive a bribe can be charged. But no one is coming forward to make official reports. They go to the politicians instead to lodge their complaints, but that’s not right. So it remains just an allegation if no one comes in. Why do the vendors do business at the level of a constabulary officer?” Foo questioned.
LIFE HARD
The vendors, though, said life on the market is quite hard at the moment and they prefer to stay quiet to avoid victimisation.One vendor complained: “He [a senior officer who takes bribe] don’t do nothing for nobody. Sometimes I see them [vendors] does give he [the senior officer] $5000. They [the constabulary officers] ain’t want money alone; they does have to get goods too. Every Friday they does come or send other constables to collect for them. Sometimes they carry you in and make you pay a fine of $5000, but don’t give you any receipt,” the woman further related.A few months ago, scores of vendors who turned up at a City Hall meeting accused officers of the City Constabulary Department of making their lives miserable when they refuse to pay them bribes. City Hall’s compound was filled to capacity as the vendors turned out to voice their concerns.
Topping the list of their worries was the harassment they experience at the hands of constabulary officers, who reportedly are always looking for bribes.
The names of several officers, who create problems for vendors who do not want to pay them, were called. In fact, one vendor complained that the stall-owners are not able to open their businesses on some occasions, if they have no money to pay on that day.
Mayor Patricia Chase-Green had chided those vendors who pay bribes, but complain only when they experience a problem. “The constables don’t push their hands in your pocket,” Chase-Green said.She had also noted that it is equally important for the constabulary officers to be respectful to the vendors and not just break up their stalls and carry away their items without proper explanations.