Dear Editor,

Thanks be to Brave Davis, Deputy Prime Minister for representing his government in FINALLY listening to the cries of us, the country’s Straw Vendors, and responding. From the day he first took office, chairman of the Straw Market, Ron Pinder, had mounting complaints against him from straw vendors.

From inception Pinder had been on his own agenda shutting down and demoralizing staff and vendors alike. He has done so many things to distress and depress the vendors of the straw market. Prime Minister, Perry Christie, received many complaints from the vendors about Pinder abusing his powers as chairman and treating them terribly. Upon listening to the voice of the PEOPLE, that Mr. Christie then summoned his VICEROY, DPM Davis, to deal with the matter. Davis then took charge that the vendors cries were heard.

It is said that when Chairman Pinder gets dressed in the morning, he uses a black marker to outline his beard and moustache and then fills them in with black shoe polish. This gives him a “Black Beard” look, which is scary to anyone. Whenever he showed up to work with that unusual jet black beard, vendors ran in terror and laid low as they knew it would be a day when he would be wreaking havoc on the market and putting them in fear.

The following are just a few complaints received by the Prime Minister:

• The Chairman took the vendors lounge and lunch room and gave it to his cousin to operate a restaurant in downtown prime time location at a minimum cost of $200.00 a month.

• The chairman bought a car using the market’s money for himself to drive around in.  He was not entitled to this and did not inform the Minister or the Permanent Secretary of his actions.

• The chairman bought laptop computers, iphones, blackberries and ipods for himself and members of the board.

• The Straw Market Authority has to pay for all meals for the chairman throughout the day and if he pays for a meal he brings the receipt into the authority for reimbursement,  He also uses the market credit card to party with his friends on the weekends.

• The chairman issued substantial contracts for work to be done around the markets to his friends and cancelled contracts he met in place to reissue them at triple the amount to his friends who are allegedly giving him kickbacks

• The chairman was causing hardship to the vendors and bragging about how he has the older vendors using their old age pension to pay their stall fees.

• The chairman closed down vendors’ stalls after being instructed not to cause any more hardship on the vendors and to work with them into signing agreements.

This abuse of power has the PM and DPM now scrambling to save the image of the government. It has been said that if the vendors know the amount of abuse of market fund that they will stop paying their stall fees. It is also said that some vendors will need psychiatric assistance after being traumatized by the strange look of Pinder’s beard, which is said to have been blackened and shined just to put the vendors in fear.

The chairman was called into a Cabinet meeting this week and was told that he is being removed from the authority but he has refused to obey the orders of the cabinet and went back to the market to carry-on with business as usual.

The DPM had to send him a second notice and threaten to have him removed by the police if he showed back up on the market property. The DPM has also ordered a full audit of the market authority and has vowed to let the chips fall where they may.

Thank you Mr. DPM for listening to the vendors and taking a strong stance with this out of control Black Beard Chairman….

Sign,

– The Straw Vendors