Last week we showed you how the wholesalers on the outside of the Queen Square Market just up and voided their Memorandum of Understanding with the City Council and its Market Man Phillip Willoughby. They worked out their own arrangements with businessman Arun Hotchandani to start using his compound at the Pound Yard bridge - cleaner, larger, better.
So if you were Phillip Willoughby you would definitely take that as a diss, right? But how wrong you would be...The irrepressible Philloughby - councilor with responsibility for taking it on the chin - called us out to the temporary market this afternoon to claim victory, in a back-handed kind of way...
Here's what he told us:
Phillip Willoughby - City Councilor In Charge of Markets
"This a temporary fix for a period of time, that will be worked out again, between the producers and retails directly with Mr. Hotchandani."
Jules Vasquez
"Yeah but, it was only worked out as an alternate construct after the arrangement you had for them failed."
Phillip Willoughby
"I wouldn't say that it failed. It wasn't that they couldn't still utilize the street, but looking at the long term outlook of working on the canal side, that would have had serious impacts on them transacting business immediately there."
Jules Vasquez
"Yeah but, on the street was vulnerable to flood; it was unsanitary. It was unsuitable for them, so they bypassed you, and your arrangement, and worked out their own arrangement, which you could not work out, and that's why we ended up here."
Phillip Willoughby
"We engaged on this situation, as a tripartide sector to come up with this solution here. The vendors, though, within that said MOU, were allocated a said time to conduct business from their trucks or however they were vending. You are saying that there is an anomaly, or technicality of the street flooding. If the street is flooding, and you are in your vehicle, or you have your produce stored properly, the flooding of the street, or any street in Belize City, should not have affected your produce. If you put your produce on the ground, then the onus should be on you for being irresponsible."
Jules Vasquez
"They went on their own - wholesalers, market vendors, they don't have an special business acumen - and they did what you were unable to do."
Phillip Willoughby
"Jules, we are all responsible persons here."
The wholesalers plan to start selling at the new area starting tomorrow.
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