The Bahamas government should let straw vendors know that this is the last straw market the people of The Islands will build for them... Going forward, straw vendors and their association need to start thinking of ways to be autonomous

The last market for straw vendors

thenassauguardian editorial

Nassau, The Bahamas

The House of Assembly is debating rules to govern the new straw market at Bay Street.  The market is a gift of sorts to vendors from the government of The Bahamas.  A visitor to The Bahamas might wonder why a government would build a multi-million dollar commercial space for independent business people in a commercial district.

Well, our political parties regard vendors collectively as a ‘special case’.

The parties think they must ensure that regular black merchants have a space on the main part of Bay Street, a district historically controlled by white merchants.

There is consensus on this point by the governing Free National Movement (FNM) and the opposition Progressive Liberal Party (PLP).

The PLP planned, as it is good at doing, a market between 2002 and 2007.  It built no market, however.  The FNM, which has been in office from 2007, has built a market.  It will open soon.  The old market was destroyed by fire in 2001 and vendors have been in ‘temporary’ accommodations since.

At this stage, we are past the relevant point of debating whether the government should have spent more than 10 million dollars on this market.  What we must consider is if such a practice should continue in the future and if vendors should graduate from state grace and welfare and become independent.

When governments offer subsidies to local industries, the objective should be to help Bahamian businesses start and build capital bases from which they can operate independently.  The subsidies should not last forever.  The subsidies cannot last forever because the state has many responsibilities, some of which become urgent abruptly.

For example, there are currently intertwined crises affecting The Bahamas – crime and education.

The government of The Bahamas needs to place as much of its focus as possible on these issues. Coddling long-pampered merchants should become less of a priority during these times.  Business people take risks.

The state can help and set policies assisting entrepreneurs.  The state, however, should not take care of business people forever.

The Bahamas has changed since the government became the patron of straw vendors decades ago.  Majority rule and independence have come about and opportunity in The Bahamas is more equally distributed now than it was in the earlier parts of the 20th century.  There is now no bogeyman keeping anyone down.

The government should let vendors know that this is the last market the people of The Bahamas will build for them.  Going forward, vendors and their association need to start thinking of ways to be autonomous.

If they want to operate as a collective, more of the revenue taken in by these merchants would need to be set aside to create an empowered association.

Such a body, run by vendors, would then have the resources to purchase the market and administer the affairs of vendors.  The government could then get back to its role as regulator.

Our major political parties should push to graduate vendors from state welfare.

In doing so, they will become better business people and the Public Treasury will be less burdened.

Oct 11, 2011

thenassauguardian editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Bahamas: Straw Vendors say Native Straw Products are not selling in the Bahamian Straw Market

Straw isn't selling, say vendors
tribune242


STRAW just isn't selling, vendors told The Tribune as we took to downtown Nassau for Street Talk in the wake of the arrest of nine straw vendors in New York last week.

It is claimed the bags are a hit among local women, and visitors to this island, who turn down straw products for counterfeit goods they can also find at home.

Telator Strachan, president of the Straw Vendors Association was receiving calls just before midnight on Wednesday night as the situation unfolded.

"Interested Bahamians were concerned, and they wanted to know if there was something they could do to help," she said.

"I understand the government put the tariff high on the bags to discourage them. Yet they know they were bringing these bags in and collecting duty.

"The vendors try to make an honest living with those bags. They bought them and were prepared to pay duty on the items."

Mrs Strachan said everything should be done to bring the arrested vendors home.

Shop owner Lerond Colebrook said: "New York City is the cheapest place to purchase these items from. If you take away the bags, you take away the food out of our mouth, or our customs officers, and for the tourists who come here excitedly for the bags.

"I did a customer survey in my shop, asking them what is their reason for coming to the Bahamas. They say they come to the Bahamas to get a bag.

"Customers say they've been coming several times a year, and we are bringing the tourists to the country."

Musician Kevin Young, said: "I do feel that selling these counterfeit bags destroy what the Bahamas straw market is all about. It deprives major stores which are authorised from getting and selling their merchandise.

"Although they're selling them at cheaper prices, the authorised stores are not getting the sales they need. Some rules and regulations need to be put in place at the reopening of the new straw market."

Vendor Ethel King said: "It is difficult to go and get straw. The poor people have to make a living."

"On the cruise ships they tell the tourist that the straw basket is filled up with bugs, so when the people come here they ask for knock off bags."

Irene Rolle, president of a prayer band group, said: "We have been praying for 37 years in this market for our country and our vendors. We pray that the mercies of God will be extended to the vendors incarcerated in New York."

On Monday, Ms Rolle said they prayed earnestly for the women, and felt really bad about the whole situation.

Although she doesn't sell knock off bags, Ms Rolle is passionate about native straw, and has been supporting the craft all her life.

"If we don't buy from our plaitters of the neighbouring family islands, who make bags from native straw, who is going to support them?" she asks.

"When they see us making straw products by hand, there is nothing else that empowers them to buy our work."

Phillipa Nixon said: "We went to selling knock off bags because we had to go with the flow with what was selling at the time, because straw products weren't and still aren't marketable.

Tourists

"In 2007, the tourists were asking us about the knock off bags. My sister was one of the first vendors who started selling knock off bags. She brought them from the free market in Miami.

"This is what we live off of right now. Whatever we have to go back to we will."

"Right now we pay a $100 difference a year for business license," she said. "Why can't we sell what is valuable to make money?

"Tourists are coming in to buy straw products and people are moving with the times."

Joy Drakes said: "From since I came to the straw market we always had, even down to the T-Shirts, products that had the Bahamas logo on it which are made in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Haiti. We don't have factories to produce this stuff.

"Whatever government decides on this issue, I have to do my job to survive.

"When I did the straw I survived, when I buy knock off, I survived on knock off.

'I will sell it until they shut us down completely.

"Americans like designer bags, they even come with a print-out of the bags they want.

"The straw isn't selling because the cruise ships are telling tourists not to purchase the straw bags because they have the red bug which eats the straw like a termite,"

Wood carver James Rolle, had a more open view of the situation. He said: "Every part of the world, people are making fake items. As long as you could get fake goods at a cheap price, people will sell it.

"Back then the straw market was selling strictly straw work. If you depend on native straw bags, you will have to do without many a day's lunch.

"If I could find some fake wood carving then I'd sell it too. Vendors are not stealing this stuff, but if they get catch with purchasing these knock off items, they have to pay the penalty.

"If I was a vendor, as far as I'm concerned, once the government get the duty I could sell them anyway. You can't tell me they're illegal once you collect the duty.

"You go to the US to buy these fake items. Once you bring them to the Bahamas and pay government duty, they aren't illegal any more.

"If government didn't want them in our country, their job is to take them at the airport over here."

September 25, 2010

tribune242

Bahamas Blog International