KMA to deal ruthlessly with recalcitrant traders

Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) has said it would not countenance any acts of indiscipline on the part of traders likely to disrupt the on-going decongestion exercise.

“Any trader who is bent on taking the law into his or her own hands for one’s own selfish gains would be dealt with according to the laws of the Assembly,” Mr. Osei Assibey-Antwi, the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), told the media in Kumasi after a meeting with traders at the Race Course.

He described as deeply worrying the impudence with which some traders had resurfaced and conducting business activities at unapproved areas in the Metropolis.

The Suame Roundabout, Adum Railway Footbridge, and other areas within the Central Business District (CBD), where trading activities have been prohibited, had seen an upsurge in marketing activities by petty traders in recent times.

Mr. Assibey-Antwi denied allegations that the KMA Task Force was practicing selective justice, saying the decongestion exercise was devoid of politics.

Some concerned traders at the Race Course had accused the Assembly of politicizing the exercise, and that its Task Force had left some traders perceived to be activists of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to trade at unauthorized places within the CBD.

The MCE assured that the Kejetia/Central Market Redevelopment project was on course with about 95 per cent of the first phase expected to be completed in August, this year.

He hinted that about 10,000 traders would be resettled at the area after completion of the project, and that validation of the traders would soon start.

Source: GNA