TMA to take stringent measures to bring sanity into the system

Tema, Jan. 21, GNA -- The Tema Municipal Assembly (TMA) has given the assurance to work extra hard to rid the industrial city of undesirables to bring sanity into the system.

The measure is aimed at ensuring that residents comply with the rules, regulations and bye-laws of the assembly, Mr Frank Asante, Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the TMA told the Ghana News Agency in interview on Thursday at Tema.

For a start, he said, recalcitrant traders, floating drivers and lunatics would be evacuated from unauthorised areas, particularly along ceremonial streets since their activities do not only tarnish the image of the planned city but go to erode the hard work of the assembly. In respect of the traders operating along the streets, the PRO said they have persistently ignored sheds allocated to them inside the central market and prefer hawking along the streets with some coming from as far as Osu, Labadi and Accra to trade in the community one central market thus creating congestion.

To this end, Mr Asante said places have been allocated to them within the various communities, the Spintex road, Klagon, Sakomono and the "Ho market" at Afariwaa farms near Ashaiman. "We shall mobilise all recalcitrant traders to those areas to ease congestion at the central market to ensure free association". Concerning the floating drivers, he noted that they were deliberately avoiding the designated lorry parks in order to evade tax, "but this time we are not going to give them the opportunity again." To ease vehicular traffic, the TMA is demarcating places where vehicles could park and is constructing corrugated metal barricade along the streets to discourage unauthorised parking, picking and loading of passengers.

On the lunatics, he said, there plans to liaise with the authorities of the psychiatric hospitals to mobilise and keep them at their end.

On sanitation, Mr Asante stated that the situation has improved drastically as the assembly has placed litter bins at vantage points in the city and entreated residents to make use of them to stop the indiscriminate littering of the environment. The PRO noted that business is growing briskly in the harbour city and attributed this to the positive signs of the Golden Age of Business policy.

He however, complained about the influx of people into the city thus putting pressure on the available facilities. Mr. Asante called for the cooperation of residents to achieve the desired results in its programme to avoid unpleasant situation.