Street vendors smell rat on the planned allocation of stores

The Ghana Street Vendors Association, (GSVA) one of the recognized trader groups in the country has expressed fear that its members could be excluded in the allocation of stalls at the “Pedestrians Shopping Mall” being constructed by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, (AMA).Based on the fear, the traders are calling for a transparent allocation of stalls at the market. They argue that the announcement by the Accra Mayor, Mr. Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson that traders should individually go to the offices of the AMA to register for market stalls and identity cards is out of place and gives them cause for concern. “Why can’t the AMA do so through the executives of the various associations as it has been doing since the beginning of the construction of the market stalls? He ordered us to register our members and issue them ID cards and submit our forms to him, which we did.”Speaking at a press briefing in Accra, the Secretary of the GSVA, Mr. Tony Eshun alleged that the directive by the Mayor is an attempt to use foul means to allocate stalls to non-members of the three recognized trader groups. “We the traders are saying that the AMA and its boss have printed some of the trader’s registration forms and are using it to register people. We are therefore asking Mr. Adjiri Blankson to publish the list of forms from the three recognized groups in his possession, so we can be sure there are no intruders.” Asked whether they have made efforts to seek audience with the mayor to address their concerns Mr. Eshun claims previous attempts by the group to meet the chief executive proved futile. He attributed the attitude of the mayor to an incident that happened sometime last year at Cape Coast, during the People’s Assembly. He said the association sent a delegation to ask the president about the then proposed construction of a market for them. He claimed this did not go down well with the mayor whom the secretary alleged has shunned the GSVA in any undertaking concerning the market. About two weeks ago, Mr. Adjiri Blankson announced at a media briefing that beginning from the first week of November, the city centre will be decongested and, especially as Ghana is preparing to host thousands of tourists for the 50th Anniversary celebrations, CAN 2008 and the Joseph Project. The decision to decongest the city centre is expected to follow the completion of the Shoppers Mall at Kwame Nkrumah Circle by the end of the month for the use of the hawkers.The traders are expected to pay ¢2 million for the allocation of a stall and ¢200,000 as registration fee. They will then be expected to sign an undertaking to abide by the rules governing the use of the mall. At the same market one thousand more traders will be accommodated in an open area specially created within the mall. Such traders will be expected to pay ¢1 million each for allocation of a place and ¢100,000 as registration fee.