Choked Markets: Traders turn Graphic frontage to mini market

Scores of traders have turned the pavement in front of the Printing Press of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) in Accra into a mini market claiming spaces in markets across the capital are limited.

The traders, mostly women, display all types of foodstuffs, including, plantain, cassava, fishes and vegetables either on tables or on the ground for sale.

Activities of the traders have robbed the environment of its beauty, with head potters everywhere meandering through the closely packed traders for business.

Small trucks popularly known as ‘Ábossey Okai macho’ are also seen at every turn, with wheelbarrows being pushed through forest of legs by some traders.

Charlotte, a 40-year-old woman, who sells taro leaves locally known as ‘kontonmire’, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that, with the harsh economic condition in the country, one must find every means to make a living hence, the decision to sell at an unauthorised place.

“I have children in the house, they must eat, and go to school, and that’s why we come to sell at this place early in the morning. We must sell something, so that we can put food on the table. We know we are not supposed to sell here, but there is no other place for us to do so,” she explained, adding that, they also paid tolls to the Assembly.

Mr Emmanuel Agyei Arthur, the Corporate Communications Manager, GCG, said activities of the traders had been a persistent feature and that management was very concerned about it.

He said the Company had tried many times to send the traders away but was unsuccessful.

“Some time ago, when Mr Adjei Sowah was the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), they (Assembly) took steps, cleared them, but they regrouped and came back. We tried but have not been able to get them out of the place.

“You know, the AMA generates some amount of revenue from the women through the daily market toll it collects, and I think that is why they can’t drive them away,” Mr Arthur said.

Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer at the AMA, Mr Gilbert Nii Ankrah, told the GNA that the toll did not legitimise the activities of the traders.

He said monies generated from the tolls were used to execute one of the mandates of the Assembly-keeping the metropolis clean.

He said the reason the traders had not been moved from the frontage of GCGL was because they formed part of the informal sector economy.

The PRO said the Assembly, through its MCE, Madam Elizabeth Naa Sackey, was constructing more markets for the traders to have decent places for their business.