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15.05.2009 Regional News

T'di Assembly to decongest city

15.05.2009 LISTEN
By The Statesman

The Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly under the ruling National Democratic Congress has embarked on an exercise to once again decongest the Takoradi Market Circle.

The area still looks choked up in spite of similar decongestion exercises by previous governments.

Strenuous efforts by the erstwhile National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party administrations to decongest the Market Circle were resisted by the traders who come back to the pavements few days after their ejection to sell. Not even heavy strokes from the cane would stop the traders from selling on the pavements where they claim business is very brisk.

All the military tactics by the former SAEMA Chief Executive, Colonel Kaku Korsah, could not scare the traders from the pavements. Unable to control the recalcitrant market women, the assembly's City Guards who are tasked with the maintenance of law and order in and around the market circle had no choice than to allow the traders do their own things.

The Statesman even gathered that some of the City Guards allegedly extort monies from the traders to look the other way when they find them selling on the pavements. But an official at the Assembly told The Statesman that the new administration really means business and would consequently not tolerate this kind of underhand dealings.

He said the current decongestion exercise was in phases, starting from truck pushers who have littered the market circle with their trucks. An early morning inspection conducted by The Statesman yesterday revealed that as many as twenty-five of such trucks have been impounded by the City Guards. One of them who spoke to this paper said they were awaiting instructions from the Assembly as to the next line of action.

Although the assembly has not officially come out with the actual date for its massive decongestion exercise, rumours in town have it that it may strike on Saturday May 16. Squatters who genuinely do not have stalls inside the market may be asked by the assembly to go to the Apremdo Market.

Unfortunately, this market which was constructed during Kaku Korsah's administration, has virtually become a white elephant. Traders are always reluctant to sell there.

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