Some 115 Valletta street hawkers who make up the monti open-air market and who were ordered to temporarily relocate their stands to St James Ditch while their site, Merchants Street, is given new paving, refused to put up their stalls yesterday… and decided instead to play football at the entrance to the ditch to while away the time.

Although most of the hawkers normally set up their stalls at the ditch on Sundays, they are complaining that they will not sell as much from that area during the week.

Last week, the government ordered the temporary relocation of the open air market from the central area in the capital, to allow for the beginning of the multi-phased programme to lay new paving in Merchants Street, part of which is being pedestrianised.

One hawker said that despite the vicinity of the ditch to the bus terminus, people will just walk to City Gate and not bother to even stroll down to the open air market.

“The government does not even want us to set up our stalls at the entrance to the ditch, but further down, making the market even less accessible,” another annoyed hawker pointed out.

The street hawkers parked their vans and waited at the entrance to St James Ditch throughout yesterday and were also expected to stay on “in protest” through the night.

The hawkers are members of the Union Haddiema Maghqudin (UHM) and,

following a request from union representatives, a meeting with the government is to be held in the near future.

The root of the problem goes beyond the temporary relocation to St James Ditch. Once work in Merchants Street is completed, the hawkers will be obliged to set up their stalls further down the street, something they have “opposed since negotiations with the government started two years ago”, according to Manuel Delia, corporate communications coordinator at the Investment, Industry and IT Ministry.

The area the government is proposing to allocate for the open-air market runs along the part of Merchants Street between Old Theatre Street and Archbishop Street.

The trees in the square just outside the historic Valletta market (Is-Suq tal-Belt) will be removed, so that all the space will be made available for the hawkers’ stalls.

Furthermore, the stretch in Old Theatre Street that was already allocated to some other stalls also forms part of the proposed allocation. Mr Delia said an alternative to the Merchants Street entrance to the Palace Armoury will have to be found.

While UHM representatives said they could not understand how a decision had been taken to relocate the market to St James Ditch without any consultation with their union, Mr Delia said the government was always ready to listen to the problems encountered by the hawkers and would continue to listen to them.

He said, however, that “the hawkers were never ready to consider any change and their only proposal was relocation of the market to Freedom Square or Ordnance Street, which is unacceptable, since it is not appropriate to have an open air market at the entrance to the capital.”

UHM manufacturing and services section secretary Nicholas Baldacchino told The Malta Independent that the hawkers had tried to set up their stalls in Merchants Street as a sign of protest on Sunday afternoon, but the road was blocked because roadworks were about to begin.

Mr Delia said that the government would be upgrading Merchants Street including, ultimately, the area to which the street market will be relocated.

Although Mr Baldacchino said the area proposed by the government was too small to accommodate 115 stalls, Mr Delia rebutted this argument, saying that the area fitted the street hawkers’ stalls perfectly as long as they complied with legal standards.

The legal size for the stalls is 2.13 metres in width and 1.52 metres in height and, according to Mr Delia, “practically none of the stalls comply with legal parameters as regards their size and the distance between them”.

Yesterday afternoon, union representatives held a meeting with the government, but no agreement was reached.

During a media conference he addressed last week, UHM secretary-general Gejtu Vella said that although the street hawkers had been assured that the relocation would be in effect for only between seven and nine months, these time frames could not be taken seriously because no project was ever concluded on time in Malta.

The government has now committed itself to complete work on the surface of the newly proposed area opposite the Valletta Market within two months, so that hawkers will be able to set up their stalls there by 1 July.

“The area will not be paved by that time, but it will have a neat layer of cement and will be safe to work on. We are making an effort to minimise the length of time, particularly since this is Valletta and roadworks stretching over a number of months pose an inconvenience to the tourism industry and residents in particular,” said Mr Delia.

He said the square would then be paved during a three-week period some time between August or September, when hawkers would be able to relocate their stalls to St James Ditch before the open-air market was set up in the new area permanently.

The new area further down Merchants Street provided a more practical place for an open-air market, said Mr Delia. It would also cause less disturbance and inconvenience to shops and offices in the street.

As for the temporary relocation to St James Ditch, Mr Delia said the hawkers were allowed to occupy the area leading from the entrance downwards into the ditch.

He said that, while the government acknowledged that the site was not as prominent as Merchants Street, stalls would be facing Girolamo Cassar Avenue.

“This site is just off the country’s central bus terminus and the MCP car park. It is also accessible to tourists arriving on cruise liners,” said Mr Delia, adding that the government also proposed further accessibility solutions, by offering to include a return stop for park and ride buses across Girolamo Cassar Avenue for example.

“If there is value in what is being sold, people will willingly go to St James Ditch to buy the hawkers’ wares. Their complaints are a terrible exaggeration,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party’s main spokesman for commerce and the self-employed Joseph Sammut said in a statement that the MLP sympathised with the hawkers and the party would be offering its full support in their fight to safeguard their source of income.

Dr Sammut said this was the latest example of the Nationalist government failing to keep its promises. The MLP was committed to engaging in serious dialogue with the street hawkers, following the forthcoming general election.