No. 130 Friday, August 20, 2010
By Hugh G.D. Ennis
Whichever body is responsible for the cleaning of the
Charles Gordon Market and its immediate environs is not
doing their job properly. Also, whoever is signing those
cheques has not been monitoring what they are paying
for each pay period.
By Hugh G.D. Ennis
Whichever body is responsible for the cleaning of the
Charles Gordon Market and its immediate environs is not
doing their job properly. Also, whoever is signing those
cheques has not been monitoring what they are paying
for each pay period.
Then who cares? After all, only poor Jamaicans go there every week to shop from vendors who sit beside the filth and sell foodstuff to all those who religiously go there
every week. Are we Montegonians strong and disciplined enough to go on a fast and the next weekend (after this letter is published), just do not go there to purchase food stuff.
Then again, who cares? Where are the health inspector who should be ensuring that our major food centre of Montego Bay is always clean and germ free? Do we all
have to wait for some epidemic to take some of our lives before the media reports/print or air the filth?
I wonder where our ministers Edmund Bartlett, Horace Chang, leaders of civic groups shop on the weekend. Do they go there with oxygen bottles and masks over their nostrils and rapidly shop and get out of the market and its immediate environs?
Then again, I wonder if one the captains of those mega liners was to take his family there with the intention to purchase some potentially lovely Jamaican foodstuff, observe the state of the market and write a letter to the Jamaica Tourist Board or to the Prime Minister; what would be the response?
You and I know that the following week, the Charles Gordon Market would be closed. It would be cleaned, power washed and sanitized for the tourists’ next visit. We who live here may die here. After all, we have already,
by our silence, continued to buy foodstuff weekly there.
I do not see anyone blocking roads and burning tyres in protest against the inadequate performance of the leader of the St. James Parish Council or Western Parks and Market in not providing us in Montego Bay with a clean healthy general food market.
Come to think of it, this letter is written by an ordinary citizen of the Bay. We are all by our silence getting ready to make our next purchase from the vendors who sit beside the filth to ply their trade.
Be careful Montegonians, that the next time you force yourself to visit the market, you do not slide on a banana peel. Oh what a pity.
I visited the market earlier this month(Jamaican currently living in Canada) and was robbed at knifepoint of my handbag containig a camera,my Canadian passport,driver's licence,some cash and jewellery; my friend who lives in Mo Bay was robbed of a change purse and her cell phone. Not only is cleanliness a problem, crime is a problem that seems to be ignored. I have told everyone I come across my story,especially Canadians, since this is what the government of Jamaica want;for people not to visit and therefore not spend which will only negatively impact the economy. My life is spared,material things can be replaced but I hope it's only a SHORT matter of time before the two losers who robbed my friend and be put be 6 feet under.
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