New kiosks being built at ex-children’s playground for street vendors |06 February 2020

Some of the kiosks that have already been set up (Photo: Louis Toussaint)

For many years now street vendors in Victoria have faced scrutiny for overcrowding the already narrow Market Street, and to improve this issue the Enterprise Seychelles Agency (ESA) is constructing fifteen kiosks at the ex-children’s playground in order to accommodate these vendors and remove them from the centre of Victoria where they are not supposed to be.

“To start with, we have only 15 kiosks as this is what our budget allows us to acquire. We do plan to have more, taking into consideration the upcoming Waterfront Project which is still under discussion,” said Angelique Appoo, the chief executive of ESA.

The kiosks will be allocated to street vendors who are registered with ESA. To determine which vendor will benefit from this project, ESA has established a list of criteria to assess and interview the applicants prior to allocation. These criteria will assess their capability of maintaining the kiosk, its rental fee and the purpose for which they intend to use the kiosk.

“We have a long list of 32 registered street vendors, plus new applicants who have written to ESA to request for the kiosks when they started seeing it being built. However in view that we have only 15 kiosks, the vendors will have to understand that we cannot provide everyone with a kiosk at the moment,” said Ms Appoo,

Ms Appoo added that she hopes to have the co-operation and patience of the vendors and they are already in discussion with the relevant authorities to get approval to place such facilities in other districts as well as to decentralise their services that will hopefully materialise this year.

ESA conducted a tender procedure through the Procurement Oversight Unit to set up the kiosks which have cost R437,288.00 including its installation. The CEO added that the rental fee for the kiosk is yet to be determined.

“The installation is expected to be completed this week, hopefully weather permitting. But the allocation itself will be done after the interviews of the applicants have been completed by next week, so that come March 1, the vendors can move into their kiosks,” said the CEO.

Christophe Zialor