Christmas 2006 was described by most sections of the media as the month of the marchand ambulant. While few people can say that they have not purchased off the pavements, there is no doubt that the authorities need to take the hawkers? issue seriously. Beyond the fact that you can find a lot of cheaper items on the streets of Port-Louis, especially, there are a lot of socio-economic factors that need to be objectively analysed before coming to terms that hawkers can represent a major problem for the new Mauritius ? the one which is going to become a modern financial hub of the 21st century ? and that the sooner the problem is dealt with, the better it will be for the country.

■ Legality

By definition, the products on the streets are counterfeits of the brands they are sporting. All the CDs and DVDs on the streets are fakes and not fit to be sold or purchased. The number one issue affecting the film and music industry is the significant loss of revenue as a result of the sale of counterfeit CDs and DVDS. This loss of revenue severely hampers film makers and music producers in their efforts to constantly revamp the industry.

■ Threat to local businesses

Small local businesses have woken up to undesirable and unfair competition that would dump their goods on the pavement next to their shops. These small businesses pay their rent and their local council tax while the hawker pays none of them and probably sells twice as many as the shop. Many small shops have gone out of business over the past 20 years and with the huge majority of cases, these have been because of the increase of hawkers selling similar products at one-third of the price. We have recently read in l?express ow some DVD hawkers are slashing their prices and the adverse effect this is having on small DVD shops.

Small firms are integral components of the economy. Apart from paying local taxes, they pay VAT on their sales and employ a large section of the population legally. All this represents a decent proportion on the yearly income of an economy.

■ Black market and taking money off the economy

It is a known fact that haw-kers do not pay any taxes and no one can control their revenue and expenses. Where the money goes or where the goods come from has to be questioned by the authorities. The Mauritius Revenue Authority is losing hundreds of millions of rupees each year because of hawkers and it is a ludicrous amount for a small economy like ours to bear. Imagine what this loss of revenue could have represented for various sectors of the country - hospitals, schools or transport.

An innocent purchase can feed the current system to produce even more hawkers and make them become more organised. The money from the marchand ambulant often goes to other people than those that have actually served you the product. You can only imagine how far people, that order by containers from South-East Asia huge quantities of products to place them on the streets, can go. This cycle of illegality includes employing unregistered people, paying them cash in hand and the same money can help to purchase or sell drugs. Ring leaders who help placing goods on the streets after nicking them from factories are likely to have drug-dealing as their other major piece of business.

■ Poor quality products

For those who have purchased off the streets, they know that, even though the products might look good and close enough to the real thing, they are not remotely anything like the real thing. Very often, these goods are actually defects dumped by factories as they will not be able to sell them on foreign or local markets.

Furthermore, a customer will seldom be able to return their products if they are not the right size and a chance of getting a refund is next to nil. In fact, you only stand a chance of having any sort of customer service if you have a pretty good memory - as if you can remember the face of the marchand who served you!

In terms of service, if you can call it that, there is no chance of you getting the sort of advice or comfort as in a shop. You are unlikely to be able to try the products on ? unless trying clothing in front of thousands of people is your kind of thing - and that makes it more likely that you will be buying the wrong size for yourself or for someone else.

■ Law and Order

The black-market issue mentioned earlier is a serious concern indeed. The products could come from a very wide range of sources. These products could be stolen and outsourced on the streets via a very complex system that could well include shadowy figures working as security guards or supervisors in our much valued textile industries.

We have all heard of instances of police officers being threatened if they dared to ask those hawkers to leave. They would manifest their right to work but would then obstruct the police to do their job. The irony is that numerous authorities have tried and failed to address this problem but hawkers should not be made to feel above the law and that they have a right to exist. They don?t. The solution proposed i.e. giving a space in some market places to sell their products is a remarkable offer by the authorities and should be non-negotiable.

■ Stretch on municipalities

You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that municipalities bear a huge daily cost to clean off their streets. The main culprits in dirtying our streets are hawkers. You only have to take a ride on Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Street on a Sunday morning to realise what a mess is made on streets and how expensive it must be to clean up. Municipalities and councils also suffer from the loss of revenue that shops would have paid in taxes on their sales.

■Landscape and Tourism

Lastly, the mess of our dear friends makes a sorry picture especially in the streets of the capital. Take a look opposite Caudan or along Edith Cavell to know that our chums are not exactly promoting the landscape of this country. They also hassle tourists into purchasing their products and more often than not have a ?Mauritian price? and a ?foreigner?s price?.

It has to be understood that our tourism is prided on the way the country looks and while a little rustic side does not hurt, hawkers can present a serious nuisance to our landscape, thereby directly affecting tourism. Something needs to be done about it and fast.

Reaz GHANTY