Kumasi, Feb. 25, GNA – Mr Patrick Kwame Frimpong, Presiding Member of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), has appealed to traders to support the assembly to rid the city of filth.
He said it was time the traders obeyed the by-laws and regulations regarding trading activities and moved away from the streets and pavements to reduce congestion, especially in the central business district of the city.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Frimpong said the assembly would reinforce its sanitation by-laws to bring sanity to the city.
The assembly would also intensify public sensitization campaigns and carry out regular clean-up exercises to ensure that the city was always clean.
Deteriorating sanitation conditions and congestion in the central business districts of Kumasi is a major challenge to the city authorities.
This had been compounded by the ejection of traders from the main central market to pave way for the redevelopment of the Kumasi Central Market.
Most of the traders, especially hawkers, have refused to relocate to the satellite markets allocated to them for their trading activities.
Some shop owners have also extended their shops and display items on pavements in front of their shops, making it difficult for people to walk freely on the pavements.
Drivers, who also don’t have spaces in the main Kejetia lorry terminal, have also turned the shoulders of the streets to loading areas.
The messy situation, coupled with heaps of refuse along the streets and trading areas, had created sustained vehicular and human traffic in almost every part of the central business district.
Authorities of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly had over the years been trying to address this challenge through various educational campaigns and interventions but this had yielded little result.
Mr Frimpong, who was elected recently, told the GNA that the politicization of sanitation issues in Kumasi had also been a factor in the inability of the assembly to address the issue once and for all.
He appealed to the traders to cooperate with the assembly to address the mounting sanitation crisis for the good of all residents.
GNA