by Rick Lowe
Well, well. It was announced in The Tribune on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 that the government will rebuild the "Famous Nassau Straw Market" on the site where it burned at the hands of an arsonist in 2001.
In a news article by Alison Lowe she confirms that "The government has budgeted around $5 million to build a new straw market..."
This is a far cry from the $23 million budgeted by the recently ousted PLP government, but it still seems excessive to me to house what The Nassau Institute found in this study was little more than a retail outlet for t-shirts, fake bags and other strange transactions. In other words, it is no longer a local craft market.
On a recent trip to Italy, referred to as a first world country, I visited the market in Lucca and found the vendors were housed in little more than a sophisticated tent, as shown in the following photographs.
Click on images to enlarge.
Of course it's not a bad idea to have a market as many countries around the world have, but it seems to me that spending $5 million is over the top. Particularly when the vendors are not made to pay rent or keep the premises clean etc.
This matter deserves clearer thinking.
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