The future of informal vendors at the iconic Galle Face Green remains uncertain – a double blow to a group of people already disenfranchised due to the crash of the economy in 2022 and bouts of upscale development over the past decade that have pushed these residents of the city out of their homes and towards the borders of Colombo.
It is learnt that the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) is negotiating a mechanism with the vendors, who will be informed of this in the coming week. However, what the mechanism will be remains unclear.
The formal process
Sri Lanka Port Management and Consultancy Services Ltd. (SLPMCS), a State-owned company, is the authority overseeing the management of Galle Face Green since 2013, according to SLPMCS Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Suraj Kathurusinghe. He told The Sunday Morning that informal mobile food vendors had not been allowed back to the Galle Face Green after the ground was cleared for Independence Day celebrations in February.
“We manage 62 stalls at Galle Face – 20 on the roadside and 42 on the seaside. These were provided after a tender procedure. There were also 37 mobile vendors who have been given a permit, identification, and t-shirts. However, the remainder were mobile food vendors who sell ‘vaddai’ and such. There were about 25 of them but the number has increased to about 60 now. Even the ones who have taken a stall from us don’t use it because they say they don’t get business as informal vendors have set up shop on the Galle Face Green,” he said.
Kathurusinghe noted that a major issue was the unsuitability of the food as it had not been prepared hygienically, as most was made at the slums where the vendors lived. “They use unsuitable oil and it is not methodical at all. They were behaving the way they wanted to. When the Galle Face Green was cleared for Independence Day, the SLPMCS, the Police, and the Public Health Inspectors (PHIs) decided we would come up with a mechanism to only allow them to make suitable foods. The PHIs are of the stance that the food should be made at Galle Face itself,” said Kathurusinghe.
A public health official at the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) told The Sunday Morning that last year, following observations of the manner in which the food was prepared, health officials had provided a series of training programmes for food vendors at Galle Face, where they had been taught to prepare and store food more hygienically.
Kathurusinghe said that mobile food vendors would not be allowed back at the Galle Face Green until a “proper licensing process” was finalised. He further said that compensation had not been provided to them.
However, mobile food vendors were observed at Galle Face Green on Thursday (14) evening as well, who noted that they had been allowed back near the roadside for the moment.
A disciplining of space
Colombo Urban Lab Founder and Director Iromi Perera, whose research institution focuses on sustainable and equitable cities in Sri Lanka, told The Sunday Morning that the current situation at Galle Face was a continuation of the “disciplining of space” that had been observed in post-war development projects and urban regeneration in Colombo.
“This idea of a world-class city doesn’t have the component of informality included,” she said, pointing to instances in the past when vendors had been moved out from Piththala Handiya and when plant sellers had been removed from the Viharamahadevi Park.
“Spaces are being gentrified and informal vendors are pushed into these gentrified spaces. The Floating Market is one example and so is the moving of Manning Market to Peliyagoda. It is this idea that everything has a place and everything has to look a particular way. Last year they were trying to move the vendors from the Japan Sri Lanka Friendship Road. They are constantly trying to move people and say that informality doesn’t have a place in Colombo. That adds to the precarity of these vendors,” said Perera.
Perera said that the dispossession faced by vendors at Galle Face had been happening since 2010, as some of them had been moved to Peliyagoda and Dematagoda from their original homes in Slave Island due to upscale development projects in the area, thus preventing them from walking to Galle Face to sell their products.
“They are now incurring many costs to travel to Galle Face everyday. There is no transparency about these moves, nor are there any rules or regulations. Even if the vendors want to do something legally, they don’t know who to turn to as processes are very ad hoc. It is difficult to even find out who is making these decisions, on what basis, and what alternatives are being provided.”
She noted that moving vendors from these spaces into more ‘formal’ ones did not necessarily improve their lives as existing networks were broken and more expenses were incurred.
“With the economic crisis, everything is more expensive and they’re unable to put food on the table, so this is another shock. What are they meant to do for income? It is not like we have a social security programme for the informal sector, so there are no safety nets to absorb this shock. It is not a situation where someone in a company is being laid off, where there are safety nets in place.”
Perera further said that decisions were being made for the city without input from its residents, adding that if the situation at Galle Face was a question of health and safety, then the solution was to have PHIs regulate the space instead of moving the mobile food vendors.
“The Galle Face Green is a space where working class families can go and afford something to eat, especially with the economic crisis. When you move the mobile food vendors, where are people meant to go to get something to eat?” she questioned.