The Jamaica Star :: News :: Where is the market?

A vendor at the Portmore market, located behind the Portmore Mall, uses her free time to peel a roasted breadfruit. Vendors complain that they have to contend with low sales and inadequate facitilities. - anthony minott

Vendors who sell in the Portmore market are restive because of low sales and poor infrastructure at their place of business.

The Portmore market is located behind the Portmore Mall.

"We ago block de road. We nah sell nutten around here, things haffi be better," one vendor told THE PORTMORE STAR.

Some market vendors complained that vendors who sell their produce on the streets are undermining them as they lure potential customers away. "We think that things will be better as we now have a new mayor, but we still nah sell nothing, we want the market now," a senior vendor said.

"Only on weekends we get a little sale, all like todeh mi nuh sell nutten from morning," another vendor said, while adding that they need urgent help. "All last week mi haffi throw seh nuff vegetable and yam and coca as them spoil," she added.

No bathrooms

The vendors also want the authorities to do something urgently about the infrastructure as conditions are uncomfortable, especially when it rains and there are no bathrooms.

Mayor of Portmore Keith Hinds said the same site that the market is currently on will become a municipal market and a taxi stand, and this, he said, will see more people going to the vendors.

He also stated that he could not give a timeline on the building of the market as his council is in the process of sending a proposal to the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), and they will, in turn, give them on costing on the project.

On the matter of taxi operators who flock the Portmore Mall on a daily basis, he insisted they would not operate at the front of the mall and will need to do their business around the taxi stand when it is built.