00:00There's no running water, there's no electricity, and food is being sold at that compound.
00:04There's a pile of garbage, maybe the height of this building, to the back of that compound.
00:09There's no washroom facilities, and you have people selling food on this compound.
00:13What we are trying to do, development is coming.
00:16I'm not going to stop that development is coming.
00:19Shogwanis Mayor Faik Mohamed says he has great plans to better his burgesses' lives.
00:25But first, the current site of the vendors' mall must be cleared.
00:30Three-up taxi stands on the side of the highway.
00:32You have no port of Spain and San Fernando taxi stands, basically, on the southern main road,
00:36or three-lane road, and restricts it to one lane, because the two taxi stands, basically, is on one roadway.
00:41We have a traffic issue.
00:43So my intention is the area is large enough to create a sort of hub where we can put our taxis and our maxis as well,
00:52as well as our vending.
00:54And that is my long-term intention for that area.
00:57The mayor tells TV6 News.
00:59The plans have been years in the making, with the borough winning two cases against the vendors who currently occupy the land.
01:07The vendors do not pay fees.
01:10What we are doing with the vendors, we are going to relocate them to the market.
01:15They are going to get six months free rent, right?
01:18And when we develop the area, they will be the first on their priority listing to go back there.
01:23However, the vendors are telling a different story.
01:27They showed TV6 a private developer's proposal for the land.
01:31Now they're saying that they want to take us out, and they're going to clean it up, and they're going to bring us back, right?
01:36But I have a document here from online, right?
01:38By a company, a well-known company within the country that will be now to end up with inside here, right?
01:45Because it's said that they're with non-government approval to do something inside here.
01:50So how would this allocate be saying one thing now, and then doing something different when it comes?
01:55And they want to extend, they want to extend some way.
01:58And they want to send a city mall to be a green park, to be a green park, because that was seen on the thing, because it's online.
02:06So open a green park in front here.
02:07So you're all going to move us out for my life.
02:09We heard these people, them, see about their family paying their mortgage and anything.
02:12So open a green park.
02:13The vendors are putting forward a different proposal.
02:17Block 25 feet from this point here to that point there, and give everybody a lease.
02:22This is what you're lobbying for.
02:23Give everybody a lease where they can go to the bank, get a contractor, pull up their money together, get a contractor, and build one uniform thing right around.
02:30The vendors and the mayor will meet sometime next week.
02:34Renessa Cutting, TV6 News.
