Story: Mary Ankrah
UNAUTHORISED structures by the roadside at Kantamanto in the Central Business District of Accra belonging to second-hand cloth and shoe dealers were yesterday reduced to a pile of rubble by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) to pave way for a road construction project.
A combined team of policemen and members of an AMA task force began the exercise around 5 a.m.
The demolition affected about 500 people who expressed displeasure at the way the exercise was carried out without enough notice from the authorities.
When the Daily Graphic got to Kantamanto in the afternoon, it was a chaotic scene of affected traders salvaging the remains of their structures.
While there were huge piles of wood in front of shops, some of the traders were seen bargaining with food vendors in a bid to sell the remains of the demolished structures to the vendors.
The demolition notwithstanding, the area was busy, as usual, with shoppers also buying and transacting other business.
Most of the traders who spoke to the Daily Graphic expressed frustration with the action of the AMA.
They alleged that the AMA had, for the past three years, been destroying their structures in the name of a road construction that had not materialised.
They, however, admitted that the assembly had, on Monday afternoon, informed the leaders of the traders to remove their structures to enable the road project to begin.
“Surprisingly, we came to work today to find our tables, chairs and umbrellas demolished, with the debris scattered all over the market,” a trader lamented.
Kantamanto is home to more than 30,000 traders and considered the hub of the second-hand clothing business in the country.
Ejecting the traders has been a headache for the AMA for some time now. The issue arouses emotions on the side of the traders, with the Kantamanto Traders Association (KTA) on several occasions appealing to the government to suspend the ejection, since traders’ livelihood depended on what they did there.
In February last year, the AMA ordered the demolition of all structures along the railway lines at Kantamanto to pave way for the construction of new rail lines.
But traders along the rail lines at Kantamanto at the time demonstrated against the demolition of their structures.
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