Hon. Michael Kpakpo Allotey, the mayor of Accra, has urged vendors at the Kantamanto Market to adopt the recently implemented daily toll system starting next year in order to support continued cleaning efforts and adhere to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s (AMA) Red Line Policy.
At Monday’s official market reopening and Kantamanto Obroniwawu Businesses’ Association unveiling, seven months after a terrible fire destroyed over 7,000 stores, displaced over 30,000 traders, and lost one life, Mayor Allotey made the plea.
Speaking to the crowd, the Mayor emphasized that the AMA spends roughly 70% of its internally generated funds on sanitation and that the Assembly had chosen to replace the GH₵15 market license fee with a GH₵2 daily toll in order to improve waste management in the market and ensure efficiency in revenue collection.
Mayor Allotey warned that street trading impeded free movement, caused traffic, and threatened life, and urged traders to keep within the Red Line demarcations.
Following the January fire outbreak, the leadership of the Kantamanto Traders Association indicated that its members had decided to start paying the GH¢2 daily tolls starting the following year in order to support sanitary management and restore order.
In a previous statement, President John Dramani Mahama’s deputy chief of staff, Nana Oye Bampoe Addo, praised traders’ tenacity and promised the government’s ongoing assistance.
In addition to resuming company operations, she said the reopening served as a reminder to the public that human behavior and inaction are what cause these kinds of catastrophes. She advised traders to invest in appropriate market structures and to closely follow safety procedures.
She emphasized that GH¢1 billion had been invested in retooling security services, particularly the Ghana National Fire Service, to respond more efficiently to catastrophes, and noted that GH¢1 million had been given to victims soon after the accident.
Source: newsthemegh.com