FISH vendors who operate from the causeway fishing village in Portmore, St Catherine, are peeved by news that they will have to remain at their current location for almost a year longer than previously announced.

Last December, oversight body, the National Road Operating and Construction Company (NROCC), told the Sunday Observer that the planned relocation of the vendors to the Jamworld Complex in Portmore would have been completed by March this year. But the newspaper has since learnt that the move would not be possible again for this year.

Managing Director of NROCC Ivan Anderson said that construction would not be completed before the end of the fiscal year in March. He said the removal of the vendors to Jamworld “won’t be until after that”.

According to Anderson, the contract for construction had not yet been awarded, and would be sent to Cabinet for approval.

“It is to go to Cabinet in the next two weeks. We are looking at maybe about the end of the financial year for the completion of the construction of the buildings which should take about eight months,” Anderson said.

The NROCC official said the ‘actual move would take place about the first quarter of next year’.

Anderson said the delay was due to the tendering process among other hiccups.

“At the same time, we have had to do some additional design work for getting the boats up to the fishing complex itself because the boats will now have to come under the bridge.

“We have had to do some depth of water surveys and we had to look at some additional dredging to take place on that side as well, so all of that has taken a little more time than we anticipated,” he added.

Plans have actually been afoot to remove the vendors from the fringes of the causeway, which is part of Highway 2000, since 2004 on the basis that they could not remain in the area since people would not be allowed to stop on the highway to make purchases.

In June 2005 oversight body, the National Road Operating and Construction Company (NROCC), in detailing plans for the relocation of the vendors to the Jamworld Complex in Portmore said the construction would take some eight weeks. But two years later the vendors are still waiting.

When the Sunday Observer visited the fishing village a few days ago, there was only a pitiful attempt at economic activity in what was once a bustling area. Of the close to 35 stalls in the area, only eight were occupied and only two customers were observed making purchases. Two vendors were seen making an attempt to gut and scale their fish while the others milled around aimlessly.

And the news that the relocation exercise would be further delayed was met with a mixture of disgust, hopelessness and mild skepticism by the vendors, who said since the opening of the toll road profits had dwindled significantly.

“We are not selling. The customers say they cannot afford to pay the two tolls to come and buy fish from us. If dem a come buy two pound a fish, how them fi pay $120 to come? It nuh meck no sense, it hard. We have the fish and no customer to buy so it spoil and we have to throw it away,” vendor Stephney Singh complained.

Singh, who said she has sold in the area for over 30 years and put one child through university from her profits, said business was at an all time low, the worst she had ever seen it.

“We have more than 30 stalls and at the present we don’t have 15 persons out here. It hard, really hard, I don’t know how we are going to survive. We were told they were going to build a market for us out at Jamworld but nothing turn out,” she said.

According to Singh, relocating to the Jamworld Complex would be much better.

“When we go to Jamworld it will be much easier because people from Portmore won’t have to pay the toll,” she opined.

Colleague vendor Joan Henclewood, who has sold in the area for five years, was equally disheartened.

“Business bad, dem mash wi up. A just one and two people coming here as you can si how di place scanty…It bad for us and it look like it going to get worst. People get fed up and leave because nutten not going on here,” she said.

“I would prefer if they would move us earlier. God bless the one and two (vendors) who coming here now,” she said, looking off into the distance.

There was little variation in the tale told by vendor Lucille Salmon, who could not put a time to the number of years she has been selling at the village.

“Whole heap a years,” she said with a worried look on her face.

“Everything get stuck fi wi. Wi feel bad because them should help us long time. Dem a wait till election when everything done out; a dat dem a wait pon, and it can’t work,” she said.

“We have our children to go back to school…mi nuh want my later days mi come si my likkle son turn gunman true mi nuh have the push fi help him,” she said.

Salmon said vendors were caught between a rock and a hard place.

“It bad, anyway yu teck it wi a suffa bad, bad and if we fi leave here go home go siddung it a go even worse. No work nuh deh; this is our likkle livelihood,” she told the Sunday Observer.

One vendor, who gave her name as ‘fine voice’, said she had been sleeping to pass the time when our news team arrived.

She too was impatient with the delay in the relocation exercise.

“From the time them say they going to build something give wi…all next year dem same time yah wi nuh move,” she said cynically.

Another vendor, Deloris Copeland, who said she had all but given up on seeing a change, put the cap on the conversation.

“When mi want pay mi light bill mi come look it. That’s all mi can do to pay mi likkle bill cause every weh mash up…if a nuh di likkle cash pot wi nuh get nutten fi go home. Nutten naw sell agen. Mi a granny, mi grow off my own dem, but mi deh yah a pang pang fi pay mi light bill and get likkle food,” she said resignedly.