Tema Station is not a market - Ali Baba

Tema Station is not a market - Ali Baba
Story: Salome Donkor
 The Head of Public Affairs and Special Assistant to the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive, Mr Ali Baba Bature, has stated that the New Tema Station in Accra was constructed by the assembly with funds from the World Bank and meant to be a lorry park and not a market.
He said it was, therefore, not true that the AMA encouraged any group of traders to form an association to operate there.
He was reacting to some concerns raised by some traders whose kiosks and structures were destroyed during the decongestive exercise at the station.
   Some of these hawkers have expressed their anger at the manner in which the exercise was conducted, reports the Ghana news Agency.
     They claimed that the AMA did not give them enough notice before carrying out the exercise, thus making them lose huge sums of money.
     In an interview with the GNA, Madam Victoria Mensah, Chairman of Foodstuff Sellers Association, said the action of AMA had come as a surprise to them because when the association heard rumours of the possible “decongestion” at the Tema Station, they contacted the authorities at the AMA and were assured that nothing like that would happen.
     She said about two years ago, they were encouraged by the AMA to form the association so that they could have a common voice in any decision of the AMA that might affect them.
     She added that officials from the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs and the AMA were present at the inauguration of the association and they, therefore, felt that the city authorities had accepted them.
     Madam Victoria Mensah said the destruction of the market was painful because during the celebration of the 50th independence anniversary, they spent ¢35 million to rehabilitate portions of the market and also put up new structures.
     "Now that they have destroyed all these structures, this huge amount of money used to get the market beautified has gone to waste.”
     She appealed to the AMA to either rescind its decision of evicting them from the Tema Station or find a place to resettle them as they had done for hawkers at Central Accra.
   Mr Bature indicated that over the years, hawkers who were displaced during the AMA’s exercises always found ways and means of returning to the streets where they were sacked from and described the concerns by the traders at the Tema Station as a calculated attempt to frustrate the exercise.
He warned that the assembly would not relent its efforts to rid the city of unauthorised structures to enhance sanity and advised traders who had deserted their stalls at the Pedestrian Shopping Mall at Odawna, near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle to occupy them.
He also asked those who were not allocated any stall at the mall to relocate to satellite markets in the city.
He further warned those operating their businesses under electric pylons and as close as 50 metres to railway lines to relocate, since they will not be sparred under the exercise.
He said the exercise will be extended to Airport West, Cantonments, Labone Junction, Dzorwulu, East Legon, Tetteh Quarshie Roundabout, as well as along the Motorway, and called for total co-operation from all illegal squatters to make the exercise successful.