Consecomercio

chief blasts
street vendors
By Susan Heslop
,....___Daily Journal Staff
, Street vendors not only
impede the free flow of
pedestrians but also re-
. present a problem of un-
fair competition against
taxpaying merchants,
Consecomercio President
Edgard Romero Nava said
Thursday
Because of this, the
situation is not resolved
simply by creating La
Hoyada market, he said.
The National and Trade
Services Council president
said that the real root of
the buhonero problem
should be tackled rather
than being satisfied with
this superficial solution.
One of the main pro-
blems, he said, has been
the massive influx of il-
legal immigrants into the
country in recent years.
He called for investiga-
tions to be opened into
operations at the Immi-
gration and Documenta-
tion Institute (DIEX),
claiming the process of
gaining citizenship is so
!ax that foreigner can
practically huy citizenship.
Immigrants constitute a
large part of the street
vendors which formerly
cluttered the city's pave-
ments, he said, meaning
the DIEX is effectively
contributing to the in-
crease of poverty in the
country and the growth of
the informal economy, he
said.
Venzuela is assimilating
the poverty of other
countries, he affirmed. It
has been doing so for
many years but in the past
this was a much richer
country and was in a bet-
ter position to do so, but
now a great strain is being
felt on the country's public
services.
He urged the com-
ptroller general and the
public prosecutor to
launch an investigation in-
to DIEX operations.
As for the creation of
new marketplaces, he said
present efforts were insuf-
ficient to cope with the
scale of the current pro-
blem. He called on local
governments to create
even more spaces for
street merchants. He also
called for present markets
which close on certain
days of the week to be
opened up so as not to Jet
the space lie "unproduc-
tive."
He said that in sorne
states local government
was actually exacerbating
the buhonero problem by
allowing them on the
streets to try to gain votes
in the forthcoming
municipal elections.
In protest to the pro-
blem sorne local chambers
of commerce are threaten-
ing to stop paying taxes
while the buhoneros con-
tinue on the streets, he
said.