Essipon Stadium traders demand refund of their monies.

Takoradi, Jan. 24 GNA - Some traders including food vendors who paid various sums of money to the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly for allocation of space and canopies near the Essipon Stadium to sell their wares during the Ghana 2008 football tournament have abandoned the idea and are demanding refund of their monies.

The decision, they said, was as the result of poor arrangement on the part of the assembly to ensure that they benefited from their investments.

The traders said the assembly failed to provide them with water and also prevent hawking in and around the stadium as promised.

These were contained in a petition to Mr. Anthony Evans Amoah, Western Regional Minister, and signed by their representatives. They said most of them could not make sales up to ten Ghana cedis during the opening group "B" match on Monday because hawkers were everywhere.

The traders also attributed the very low patronage to the dusty nature of the market and also the absence of security. The traders said they contracted loans from friends, relatives and the banks to undertake the venture with the hope of making some profit. "In order not to incur bigger debts we have decided to abandon our activities at the stadium", they said and appealed to the Regional Minister to prevail on the assembly to refund their monies to them. They showed GNA receipts of monies they paid to the assembly and these ranged between 200 and 500 Ghana cedis.