By Keril Wright, Staff Reporter 
The stagnant drains that run through the Falmouth Market, Trelawny, clearly illustrate some of the difficulties being faced by vendors operating out of the municipal markets in western Jamaica. - Keril Wright
WESTERN BUREAU:
FOLLOWING A recent tour of the Lucea Fish Market, Mayor Lloyd Hill, promised that the Hanover Parish Council will be implementing short-term measures to alleviate the deplorable conditions at the facility within the next two weeks.
"We will definitely be implementing some short-term solutions to the problems at the market," the Mayor told The Gleaner on Tuesday, in the wake of recent allegations that vendors were selling fish in a facility infested with flies and maggots.
According to Mayor Hill, the immediate plans will involve cleaning of the drains, which will begin by the end of this week; the resurfacing of the concrete counters, used to sell the fish and the establishment of a new entrance to the fish facility at the market.
"There is not a shortage of funds to complete the short-term work and there is no reason why we should not be able to begin the work in another week or two," said Mayor Hill, who admitted that had he been aware that the situation at the market's fish facility was so grave it would have been treated as a priority, as the Council has been repairing the market in stages since last year.
"We had just not reached them (the fish section of the market)," Mayor Hill said. "We have done improvement work on the sanitary facility, the meat section and they were next on the list."
On Tuesday, vendors at the fish market said the situation came about as a result of the failure of the Council's sanitation workers to remove the fish refuse for over a two-week period. They claimed that for years they have had to sell under unsafe conditions, which include a stagnant pool of moss-coloured water at the entrance to the facility.
Others argued that the entire market was not being cleaned properly, as the Council was not paying its workers well. They also complained that the Council had failed in its four-year promise of curbing street vending, which has resulted in a loss of revenue to them.
However, in countering the charge by the fish vendors, Mayor Hill accused them of contributing to unsanitary conditions at the market, due to them not properly disposing of garbage. "They just dump it outside the building instead of taking it to the garbage receptacles at the front of the market," he said. "If necessary, we will put additional garbage receptacles in that section of the market, but if they needed this then that should have been communicated to us, as we anticipate that all the market vendors would have utilised the garbage receptacles we provide."
However, while the vendors continue to see a downturn in business on account of the claim that the fish market is maggot-infested, Mayor Hill said the Lucea Market is up for total reconstruction under the Local Government's Parish Infrastructure Develop-ment Programme (PIDP).
Like their counterparts at the Lucea Market, vendors at the Falmouth Market in Trelawny, are also unhappy. According to them, since the recent flood rains, they too have been struggling to keep that facility in a sanitary state. In an effort to alleviate the problem at the market, which is largely unpaved, the Trelawny Parish Council trucked marl to the facility to cover the worst affected areas earlier this week.
The Parish Council has also started cleaning drains in the market. However, according to market supervisor, Charlton Brown, it is a futile exercise as drains that run through the market, which he sees as the root cause of the problem, are not being dealt with.
