Kumasi petty traders agree to relocate

Traders selling at unauthorised places in Kumasi have agreed to relocate at the Racecourse and other satellite markets in the Metropolis.

The traders, whose presence on pavements at Adum, Central Market, Kejetia and S.A.T., among other areas had created congestion in the central business district, said they would move to the approved places by Friday, March 21.

The agreement was arrived at at a meeting held between the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), the United Petty Traders Association, the Racecourse Traders Association and some leading members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Metropolis.

The meeting, chaired by Nana Asabere, Asante-Akim North constituency chairman of the NPP, was a culmination of a series of meetings held between the assembly and the executives of the two traders associations.

A communiqu? signed by all the stakeholders asked those who had stalls at the Racecourse to occupy them or risk their re-allocation to other traders.

''The assembly reserves the right to prosecute any person arrested for selling at any unauthorised place in Kumasi.''

The KMA Control of Hawkers Bye-Laws of 1995 says, ''nobody is allowed to trade on the pavements of the city and other places such as Kejetia, P.Z, K.O, Adehyeman Gardens and the frontage of banks.''

For sometime now attempts by the KMA to evict illegal hawkers from the central business district had been met with resistance forcing the assembly to use the Police from time to time to enforce its bye-laws on hawking.