Design of Tema Station did not include market - Ali Baba

Accra, Oct. 25, GNA - Mr Ali Baba Abature, Public Relations Officer of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), on Thursday explained that the eviction of the hawkers from the New Tema Station had become necessary in order to achieve the main reason why the station was put up. He said the World Bank loan taken by the government in the middle 1980s to construct the station did not make provision for a market. "In 1985, the government of Ghana acquired a loan from the World Bank for the construction of the station and the plan approved by the World Bank did not include a market," Mr Abature told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview in Accra. "It behoves on the AMA to make sure that the money is used for what it is meant," he added.

Mr Abature said it was disturbing to note that the facility the money was meant for had already been abused before the government could start paying in 2010.

On how the latest decongestion exercise had fared since its re-launch, he said everything had gone on well as planned. "So far things have gone well and according to our plan. The programme will stay like that." Mr Abature emphasised that the exercise would go on until the AMA achieved the objectives it had set for itself, saying that nothing would cause them to rescind their decision of getting the hawkers out of the Tema Station.

He said it was pathetic that the station had been turned into a sleeping place for female porters (kayaye) who worked there. "Every dawn when members of the decongestion team visit the place, they see a lot of porters sleeping there which is highly uncalled for." Mr Abature, responding to an allegation made against him by Ms Victoria Mensah, Chairperson of the Tema Station Food Sellers Association, that when the Association was inaugurated he was there and therefore that endorsed its formation, he said members of the Association presented themselves as tomato sellers and not foodstuff sellers at Tema Station.

He explained further that he was chosen by the AMA to be their representative at the launch while the meeting was held at Kinbu and not at Tema Station as Ms Mensah said.

"In Ghana we all enjoy freedom of association and no one can stop anyone from forming any."

He said all the exercises that the Assembly had conducted were done under the watchful eyes of 65 policemen and 15 officers from the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) and there was no way anyone from the AMA could have stolen anything belonging to the hawkers. Mr Abature said the AMA spent 25 billion cedis to put up the Hawkers Market at Kwame Nkrumah Circle for 4,000 hawkers and it was regrettable that only about 2,000 of them now occupy the place. "Many of the hawkers at Tema Sation own stalls there and I don't see the rationale behind their refusal to locate at the place. It is sheer recalcitrance," he said.

Mr Abature said the AMA had put up 32 markets in Accra but only four of them - Nima, Mamobi Agbogbloshie and Makola - were fully occupied and asked those affected to move to the satellite markets. 25 Oct. 07 Attention recipients: Item 22 ends our third transmission