Odawna Traders intensify Advocacy Action Education

Accra, Feb. 23, GNA - The Novotel Market Traders Association (NOVMATA) have intensified their 'situational analysis' of the implication of hawking on business activities in the market.

They sought the support of the business advocacy challenge fund (BUSAC) to carry out evidence based advocacy to remove the bottle necks facing the traders in the Odawna market area.

Miss Bernice Otoo, President of the Association, at a sensitisation programme dubbed, 'Advocacy Action in Accra, said they have taken a number of steps including petitions, media engagements to bring their plight to the attention of the authorities.

She said although the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) had put in some efforts to clear the hawkers at Odawna market by constituting a committee and task force to be responsible on these matters, 'it had been constrained by political interference and under staffing.

'We believe strongly that the AMA's action to enforce they bye-laws had not yielded their intended results, resulting in low patronage, sales and profit of traders reduced, and serious waste management issues', she said.

Miss Otoo said the Odawna market is currently operating without any reserved public parking lot because hawkers have deserted their stalls and sized the car park creating serious congestion, while preventing trucks from entering.

She said all efforts by the association to regulate the menace of hawking and seizure of car park, had proved futile.

Miss Otoo said AMA should ensure that all the places in the market are fully utilised for the purpose for which they were build restore order and responsibility by eradicating all illegal trading activities to stop further proliferation of the future hawking situation

A consultant of BUSAC, Miss Florence Asmah, suggested that AMA should persuade and educate the hawkers that it was in their ultimate interest to conduct their trading activities inside the market where facilities of water and proper refuse disposal are available.

This, she said, would attract profitable and stable business to all traders because of better convenience to customers who were subjected to the sun, rain, dust and traffic in the parking lot.

GNA