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AMA Mayor interacts with market associations and queens
Accra, March 15, GhanadotGNA - Mr Stanley Nii Adjiri
Blankson, Chief Executive Officer, Accra Metropolitan
Assembly (AMA) on Friday appealed to all market associations
to lend massive support to the assembly’s initiatives to
ensure total development of the city.
Mr Blankson noted that too often the Assembly had received
condemnation from the public at the launch of new
initiatives just to be praised at the end of implementation.
Speaking at a reception for market associations and market
queens in Accra, the Accra Mayor also asked traders to do
away with conflicts and unite.
The reception was also to afford the various market
associations and market queens the opportunity to interact
with the AMA management with the view to finding solutions
to problems confronting them at the various markets.
Mr Blankson cited the rehabilitation of the Agbogbloshie
market, the Kwame Nkrumah Circle Pedestrian Shopping Mall
and the registration of taxis as the some of the Assembly’s
initiatives that had paid off.
He cited a Ghana Police Service attestation that the taxi
registration exercise has helped to reduce armed robbery in
the city.
He expressed his disappointment at the refusal of some
hawkers to relocate to the shopping mall at the Kwame
Nkrumah Circle.
“Why is it that our brothers and sisters don’t want to go to
the mall to sell their goods? I just don’t understand this?”
he asked.
He added: “All that I am doing is not to my personal
benefit, but rather it is to ensure that Accra gets to a
befitting status.”
Mr Blankson said the AMA was securing funds from the World
Bank to put up a new market complex at Salaga market which
was sitting in water.
He said soil testing at the market indicated that there was
water under the land.
Mr Blankson bemoaned the spate at which the Tema Station
market had been turned into an abode of young female porters
who are harassed by men at night.
On the Chemu Lagoon project, the Mayor said government had
acquired funds from the French government for the project
which was expected to be completed within 18 months.
Madam Mercy Needjan, Secretary of the Market Women
Association, appealed to the AMA to rotate the schedule of
security guards deployed in the market because most of them
were exercising too much authority.
Besides, the assembly should provide more security guards,
she said, stressing that guards at the various markets were
inadequate.
Madam Needjan suggested to the AMA to involve various market
associations on preparatory discussions before new policies,
especially levies are introduced to avert conflicts and
confusion among traders.
Ms Grace Toku, Treasurer at the Pedestrian Shopping Mall,
Kwame Nkrumah Circle, appealed to her colleagues, who were
still selling on the streets to join them at the mall.
GNA
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