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Government Planning to Increase Penalty Fee for Vendors

One of the things we have to respect is that vending has been a way of life from slavery days, whereby people would have plied their trade whether selling fruits, whether selling whatever to feed their families and indeed vending has taken people in this country out of poverty. It send [sic] many children to school including…

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One of the things we have to respect is that vending has been a way of life from slavery days, whereby people would have plied their trade whether selling fruits, whether selling whatever to feed their families and indeed vending has taken people in this country out of poverty. It send [sic] many children to school including myself. I am testimony of a grandfather who was  vendor in Ellerton, St. George… so indeed I am supportive of vendors …We just need to give them the respect that is due to them and also give them the space that they require to be part of the landscape of this country.

Last weekend the Prime Minister Mia Mottley at the Barbados Labour Party’s annual conference made passing reference to itinerant vending in Barbados and the need for some order to be brought to bear. The matter of vending along the streets of Barbados has been given lip service by successive BLP and DLP administrations. All will agree that citizens of Barbados from the lowest social class are members of the vendor class.

– Dwight Sutherland, Minister of Small Business (2018)

A scan of parliament’s website shows the Markets and Slaughter-Houses (Amendment) Bill, 2019 on the Order Paper. One of the reasons for the amendment to quote the Bill – “… is to amend the Markets and Slaughter-Houses Act, Cap. 265 to make provision for the imposition of pecuniary penalties and other matters related thereto…The pecuniary penalty in respect of an order made pursuant to subsection (3) is $300″. The current fine is $50.00.

Given the class of person who will be affected by the increase in penalty begs the question – is the proposed increase in the fine and other amendments to the Act fair?

Relevant Links

 

85 responses to “Government Planning to Increase Penalty Fee for Vendors”

  1. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @ David October 30, 2019 12:41 PM
    Based on your clarification I easily fall under the heading.

  2. Piece the Legend Avatar
    Piece the Legend

    @ Dullard

    You said and I quote

    “… Dullard October 30, 2019 10:32 AM

    Does it matter whose idea it is? Who benefits if the system can be improved?

    Of course it does. Especially where there are benefits – not only financial– that can accrue to the author of said ideas…”

    The simple problem here is that there are 3 Blogmasters.

    The first and original one is the one who, in floating these ideas about jumpstarting an ethos of national participation, is the man who is both patriot and thinker.

    It is he who, even though hated by the DLP AND THE BLP has formed and maintained The Vanguard.

    When you continue with this concept and I quote

    “…But in a culture where stealing of IP is commonplace no surprise at comments like these…” and you say so during the job schedule of either of the other two, you have encountered a Mental Vacuum and An Expanse which cannot see the connectivity between though capital protection and providing people with proximate space.

    So whereas some of us read BU as a “continuum of lumen” seeking to thread all of the vibrant ideas here together for a single working society, by and large our society is made up of sheeple WHO THINK LIKE THE OTHER 2 BU BORG

    They are incapable of making the connection between this article and another article blogged here a. ARE WE ANY BETTER? Or b. Barbados: Shifting from Vision to Action

    So Dullard, when you finally arrive at “…I have struggled to find as much stealing of work and ideas as I’ve seen in Bdos….” this instance of the BU BORG is absolutely lost AND, WHILE THE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND WHERE YOU ARE GOING, the sheeple here, who are like Legion, dont have a RH clue.

    Watch the retort to de ole man now Dullard merely because I have been kind while calling them …

  3. Piece the Legend Avatar
    Piece the Legend

    @ the Honourable Blogmaster your assistance please with an item here for Dullard thank you

  4. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ David BU

    I have noticed several references to the Governor’s of the Central Bank statement on the Commercial Banks charges of fees for the electronic transfer of funds from customers accounts to those of Traders. I would like to point out that money transmission involves costs. It is preferable that the price of these services be determined by the parties without the interference of the CBB. CBB interferes with the process only if the settlement threatens to disrupt the exchange of goods and services.
    In another section of the press earlier this week I also noticed a debate about the high costs of currency. Currency as a medium of exchange always incorred a cost ,transferring to digital money does not remove the costs. Digital money use a high percentage of energy/ fuel. One needs to do a cost benefit analysis before jumping to conclusions.
    The bottom line is there are costs in the money transmission process. We are transitioning to a digital process and there will be costs.

  5. David Avatar
    David

    @Vincent

    By the Governor’s own admission he confirmed complaints about exorbitant bank fees and promised to take it up with the banker’s association.

  6. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ David BU

    Yes. I read that. But there were comments on this blog that gave the impression that he was not aware of the complaints. The approach of the CBB has always been that of moral suasion/discussion . Traditionally the Financial System has cooperated.

  7. David Avatar
    David

    @Vincent

    Is that so? As far as one can remember there have been complaints from the public about high bank fees. With banks taking a deep haircut will they be so ready to cooperate with the expectation to maintain ROE from their shareholders etc?

  8. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ David BU

    You need to wake up and smell the coffee. There are no free lunches in the economic system. Some body pays.

  9. David Avatar
    David

    @Vincent

    You are happy with the distasteful profits banks have been making in an austerity period?

  10. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ David BU

    My personal happiness is irrelevant.
    My role is that of arguing for an equitable distribution of the costs and the benefits.I live in the real world. Like most of the BU Household, I am concerned about the inequitable distribution of National Income. It is getting worse and we are assisting in the process unwittingly.

  11. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ David BU at 4 :53 PM

    You may recall that in previous submissions that I advised we must view the economic process as an exercise in Game Theory. Did the banks take a deep hair cut? Or was it the banks customers and the tax payers( present and future)?

  12. David Avatar
    David

    @Vincent

    Banks held government paper whether to satisfy reserve requirement or investment opportunity?

  13. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Water level at Bowmaston at 4 feet. Normal level at this time of year is 19 ft.

    “Chairman of the Barbados Water Authority, Leodean Worrell says water levels in some previously unaffected wells are dropping. Addressing the Barbados Labour Party’s 81st annual conference in Queen’s Park on Saturday, she outlined the dire situation of the water supply as drought conditions persist, despite the island being five months into the six-month rainy season.

    See video at Nation News online.

  14. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ David BU at 5:53 PM

    Did they hold them of their own free will? If something is a statutory requirement , is it an investment?

  15. David Avatar
    David

    @Vincent

    Reread the comment, whether statutory requirement or investment the debt restructure resulted in revenue forgone.

  16. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ David BU

    And they are recovering it from the customer through fees and future interests payments.

  17. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    And we have not yet factored in the negative interest rates on deposits.

  18. SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife Avatar
    SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife

    @Piece the LegendOctober 30, 2019 7:47 AM “Bajans are a lazy people. In other climes there are Food Markets and Bazaars and all the above MILES AWAY and people will, bus, take trains and drive there for products.”

    Bajans are NOT lazy.

    Buying and selling, vending, markets, should be where the people naturally gather. And all over the world people naturally gather in towns and cities. The idea that people should bus miles away to marketplaces is pure foolishness.

    For thousand of years farmers have brought their produce to town. In fact places became towns because people gathered there to buy and to sell.

  19. SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife Avatar
    SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife

    The market places and the bus, taxi stands, and car parking lots should be integrated. Ideally people should have to walk through the various markets in order to get to their bus, car or taxi.

    That way people buy as soo as they get out of vehicles, or people buy before boarding their vehicles.

    Transportation and markets belong together like husband and wife, or hand and glove.

  20. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    @ Vincent,

    https://www.pwc.com/ca/en/industries/banking-capital-markets/canadian-banks-2019.html

  21. SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife Avatar
    SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife

    Of course market stalls should be well constructed, clean, beautifully painted, and toilets and sinks with hot water and soap for hand washing (solar of course) should be provided for the vendors and the customers and should be cleaned as regularly as the toilets at the airport and at Sherbourne/Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Center.

    Why do we seem to believe that markets should be grungy?

    Markets do not have to be dirty and grungy.

    Markets should NOT be dirty and grungy.

  22. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ Hants at 6:50 PM

    Thank you

  23. Baje Avatar
    Baje

    Barbados punching above its weight whilst Mia cares.

    Workers unpaid for three months

    Acting General Secretary of the National Union of Public Workers Delcia Burke says she is deeply concerned by the level of exploitation that some workers in the private sector are currently facing.

    In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Burke made reference to a St George-based nursing home where she said that “none of the workers has been paid in the last three months” and they have no word on when their next pay cheque would be. Burke contended that the workers were essentially being treated as “modern-day slaves” as some were even forced to keep their children home from school because they simply did not have the money to send them. She also complained the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) payments were being deducted but none had been paid in to the state-run social security safety net.

    “Those workers have some very serious concerns. Their manager is telling me that the workers would have to wait until November 6 to see if they can get paid and this is after not getting money for three months. In addition, they have been deducting monies from these workers for NIS and not paying it in,” said Burke.

    She explained that while her union does not represent these workers, who number about 24, she made an attempt to negotiate with the owner on behalf of the workers, but got the sense that there was no urgency on the part of the owner to have the matter rectified

    “Since August none of the workers has been paid, not one, and these salaries are not even large salaries. The owner invited me up there and [the owner] wanted to meet me without the workers and when I refused, I was told to leave the place. Some of the workers are saying that they want to be severed.

    Barbados TODAY visited the facility this afternoon to attempt to speak with the owners but was unsuccessful. Several telephone calls were also made to the elderly care facility and messages were left, but no calls were returned.

    However, the consensus among several of the workers, who would only speak to Barbados TODAY on condition of anonymity, was that they were being taken advantage of because the owners seemed to think that they had no options.

    “Right now, none of us in any union and they know that with the little bit of money that they paying us, none of us can afford to pay a lawyer to deal with our matter. So that is why they could afford to tell us that they would pay us whenever they get money,” said one worker.

    “It is just a shame how they treat human beings. They don’t care if we can eat or send our children to school. All [they] care about is that we get to work however we can and do the laundry and whatever is needed for the patients. This cannot be fair,” another worker said.

    Barbados TODAY understands that the average salary at the nursing home is around $600 per month while those in supervisory positions receive $1,200 per month. Meanwhile each patient at the facility is charged $2600 per month. Burke contended that this was just one more example of why Government needs to implement minimum wages across the board.

    “Right now, the minimum wage only applies to shop attendants. So, these workers are being paid less than if they were working in a supermarket or gas station. These are caregivers that are being treated this way but are expected to be in the frame of mind to administer proper care to people’s loved ones. These are things which need to be looked into as a matter of urgency because this could be problematic down the road,” she stressed.

    https://barbadostoday.bb/2019/10/29/workers-unpaid-for-three-months/

  24. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    ” Barbados TODAY understands that the average salary at the nursing home is around $600 per month while those in supervisory positions receive $1,200 per month.

    Meanwhile each patient at the facility is charged $2600 per month.”

    Who are the owners of the Nursing home ?

  25. Baje Avatar
    Baje

    Hants

    HOW THE RH DOES SOMEONE LIVE OFF US$300 A MONTH, ARE THEY EATING ROCK STONES AND DRINKING SUGAR WATER?

  26. Artaxerxes Avatar
    Artaxerxes

    “That is quite true but my difficulty is with the double standards. When the rich white or indian man break the law incoherent noises bay for a while and then the situation remains the same.”

    What “double standards?”

    “When the (poor black man” breaks the law incoherent noises bay for a while and then the situation remains the same” as well.

    Let me give you an example. On November 21, 2015, there was a police operation to clear the City streets of illegal vending and to remove displays from the sidewalks.

    On Tuesday, May 31, 2016, those vendors plying their trade along the Charles Duncan O’neal Bridge and at the entrance of the Fairchild Street Bus Terminal were given notice they would be removed.

    On Friday, June 3, 2016, police made those without licences pack up and leave. Again, on June 9, 2016, police swooped down on illegal vendors operating on the Duncan O’Neal Bridge, at the entrance of the Fairchild Street terminal and St. Michael’s Row, forcing those who did not have valid permits to move.

    The vendors, some of whom were non-nationals, were adamant that each time the police removed them they would return to the locations after the officers leave and said in Guyana vendors are allowed to “set-up shop” anywhere they pleased.

    The “incoherent noises bay for a while” ………. and as at today, October 30, 2019, “the situation remains the same.”

  27. Piece the Legend Avatar
    Piece the Legend

    @ my Brother Hants

    When de ole man posted my now banned Stoopid Cartoons that declared that POST THIS IMF AUSTERITY PLAN 5,000 people had been sent home, the 1st of the Rented Jackasses Hee Hee complained about my Stoopid Cartoons being a lie, said their head man Mugabe had only sent home 1,000 AND THAT I WAS TO BE CENSORED FORTHWITH.

    The following day Brother Hants true to form, the Then BU BORG on duty threatened that memes would soon be banned.

    So I stopped mine KNOWING THAT THEY HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO GET RID OF PIECE THE LEGEND from BU for my comments.

    Heheheheh

    Euphemism for support of the PDP must not be allowed here.

    Dem soon going contrive a next reason but all wunna going see dat one too…

    But the fact is that several thousands have been fired and the private sector is mekking poor people shy$e

  28. SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife Avatar
    SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife

    Nobody should insult their workers by paying them $600 per month. I pay the young man who cuts the grass and trims the hedges $100 each time, he spends about 4 hours, and he deserves every cent of his pay.

    Some people too like to exploit others.

    And

    “Meanwhile each patient at the facility is charged $2600 per month”

    As well I trust that the facility is actually collecting the $2,600 per patient per month, and not just collecting promises from the spouses and adult children of the patients.

  29. fortyacresandamule Avatar
    fortyacresandamule

    Some of us always like to reference slavery, poverty, and blackness to justify lawlessness, chaos and just downright indiscipline behavior. We need to rise above this simplicity and self-pity. No wonder the europeans still think we can’t govern or run a model country. I have been to way poorer countries than BIM where people ply their wares in organise bazzars or specialise markets. None of this UNSIGHTLY illegal vending you see all over the place.

  30. fortyacresandamule Avatar
    fortyacresandamule

    Bridgetown is slowly evolving into Kingston, Jamaica, where all sort of lawlessness goes on. Kingston, is the most unsightly CARICOM capital in my opinion. People will even set up vending shacks right in front of your home with no compunction. As a matter of fact, NO public space in Jamaica is safe from illegal squatting or vending.

    Mark my word, we are surely and slowly on our way to that state of affairs in Barbados. I am a firm believer in the broken window theory of law enforcement. Turning a blind eye to simple rule of law can lead to much bigger problem.

  31. Jean Pelerin Avatar
    Jean Pelerin

    @ Piece

    Great idea re “The Constitution River Causeway Repurposing Project ” ! But it won’t happen in your lifetime, unless it is accompanied by massive corruption ! Should have been done in the first place, instead of the unsightly and unhealthy mess which currently exists !

  32. David Avatar
    David

  33. Piece the Legend Avatar
    Piece the Legend

    @ The Honourable Blogmaster your assistance please with an item here for FortyAcresandaMule thank you

  34. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    How long has Cost U Less been operating in Barbados? If at the outset they felt it was necessary to employ someone from overseas who was already employed by them and familiar with their operation I can accept that, however as a condition of that employment it should have been stipulated that a national be trained to take over those management duties at some time. Every year UWI sends people into the world with undergraduate and graduate degrees am I to believe that none of those could be trained to manage what is basically a retail operation? Its time that the Gov’t put a stop to this stupidity of foreign owned operations from importing employees because they can’t find “suitable” local candidates to fill some positions.

    BTW under the wording of that ad Cost U Less is under no obligation to hire anyone familiar with their system it can hire any run of the mill non- resident and claim that they fulfilled the requirements of the job.

  35. fortyacresandamule Avatar
    fortyacresandamule

    @Sargeant. Spot on. It’s ridiculous when you consider the number of management degree majors graduating from UWI. These are trainable individuals plus the learning curve to work in retail management is not that steep.

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