Planning Officer calls streamlining of informal sector activities

Ms Gifty Nyarko, the Sunyani West Municipal Director of Physical Development Planning has stated that the integration of the informal sector activities into the mainstream land use planning processes is vital in infrastructural and development plans and can contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 11.

According to her, the informal sector workers are estimated to be about 85 percent of Ghana's total workforce, but they are without access to basic protection and usually compete for space in the urban cities to undertake their small-scale business for survival.

She said in an interview with newsmen at Odomase near Sunyani that "informality does not mean illegality, just that they have not been integrated into the mainstream land use planning."

Citing petty traders such as those selling porridge, waakye, kenkey, pepper and others, she said they do not need an urban space before they could do business. “But because there were no proper plans and space zoned for these activities after the main market, they therefore locate in marginal spaces within the urban environment and along major road in an unregulated manner. They are seen as a threat to proper city management systems, yet city authorities cannot find antidotes to the situation."

She suggested that zoning about 20 feet square for each of these petty traders in a nice shed to do their business would help sanitize the system and avoid the issue of city authorities pouncing on them everyday for eviction in the name of decongesting the central business areas of the cities.

Sanitation

She calls the need for proper plans by the city authorities for these small businesses to avoid the situation of scattered containers and tables anyhow in the cities.

This she added, would help beautify the cities as well as increase revenue mobilization and enhance infrastructure arrangement.

Ms Nyarko further observed that regularizing activities of the informal sector could automatically prevent them from selling in unhygienic and unauthorized areas.

According to her, the role of strategic infrastructure is key in rebuilding a robust economy, explaining that infrastructure is the pivot of development. "It plays the role of oil or fuel in terms of vehicular movement hence, the need for proper plans by the city authorities for these small businesses to avoid the situation of scattered containers and tables anyhow in the cities."

"This would help beautify the cities as well as increase revenue mobilization and enhance infrastructure arrangement," she said.

Touching on community engagement in planning processes, Ms Nyarko said the local people are key partners in infrastructure provision, therefore, people in the communities should be informed as participants of the land use planning processes.

“This is because they have to be in the know about their stake in national development”, she said.