There was chaos at Nkrukan in Yilo Krobo Municipality in the Eastern region Thursday, February 10, 2022, when the decongestion team raised the Community to clamp down on hawkers and recalcitrant drivers.
The decongestion exercise is part of the broader initiative by the Eastern Regional Minister Seth Kwame Acheampong to be conducted across the region.
Nkurakan is notorious for high indiscipline on the road during market days as both hawkers and drivers block roads to sell foodstuff and offload and load respectively creating gridlock.
The Municipal Chief Executive for Yilo Krobo Municipality Eric Tetteh together with some assembly members and security personnel from the Ghana police service and a team of NADMO personnel converged and stormed the Nkurakan market, and other adjoining streets serving as the main roads which link Koforidua and Somanya and also Koforidua to Asesewa Township.
According to Eric Tetteh, ” the problem is that not that we don’t have enough space in the Nkurakan market, but it is because the people think that they can easily get customers to buy their items by the roadside so they move out and this is motivating others to also join them on the street but since this is a major high way which sometimes on market days accumulates heavy traffic of not less than an hour and sometimes two hours for you to just pass through this place”.
“One of the things that affect a market is when people cannot easily enter to buy if the traffic cannot flow cars cannot even stop and buy things from the market and so it is because there is no serious competition here that is why they think what they are doing is right,” He said.
He reiterated that the road from Koforidua to Somanya is under construction and which according to the contractor there is the need to pave way for proper demarcations of the road to take place but because the people have occupied the street to sell their items, it impedes the progress of work that is supposed to be done saying work is not done on the road at least twice in a week due to a heavy vehicular and human traffic as a result of the activities of the market women during market days.
Speaking to the media, he highlighted that the decongestion exercise has taken effect today 10th February 2022 after a series of sensitization exercises with the market women and deep consultations and engagements with all other stakeholders in the municipality, this he said is fair enough for everybody to abide or comply with it.
“As a leader, you have to be fair and firm and I know very well that whenever you want to bring a change it will affect some people, those who benefit from the old order will begin to resist the change but I believe that this exercise is to the interest and the development of the Municipality so we will continue to pursue what is good for us,” he said.
He added that as part of the assembly’s long-term plan for the expansion of the market, a nearby land at the outskirt of the town will be acquired and subsequently develop for the construction of an ultra-modern market to occupy the majority of the market women who trade along the roadside.
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com/Obed Ansah
