President of the Ghana Electrical Dealers Association, Kwabena Koranteng Asiamah, has reaffirmed the electrical cable traders’ decision to resist any attempt by anyone to mount containers at their designated places.
On Sunday, March 28, 2021, over 200 electrical cable traders’ tables and wooden structures were demolished by some unknown persons.
According to him, the containers, presented by these faceless people, are to be rented to replace the tables and chairs the traders work on.
Traders bemoaned that renting the container will cost them GH¢30,000 to GH¢60,000 for 5 years.
But Mr Asiamah was of the view that these containers cannot accommodate all the tabletop traders as a table contains a minimum of 5 people working around it.
He also raised the issue of the traders' security. The GEDA President opined that their counterparts cannot operate in a container as they need to freely move about to carry out their duties.
Mr Asiamah stressed that, should there be a fire outbreak at Opera Square, firefighters cannot have access to the place to douse the fire if these traders are to operate in a container.
He also noted that these new containers will overshadow other stalls behind them.
In an exclusive interview with GhanaWeb Business, he said these tabletop sellers are not financially fit to own a stall aside the negative impact these new containers pose to the traders at Opera Square.
“If you want to sell containers to them, nobody has money to buy a container. Even if one person gets the money to buy the container, what about the 5 people remaining? They will not have any work to do and anywhere to go so we will not allow anyone to bring containers to this area… For now, we will not allow anyone to bring containers here,” he told GhanaWeb's Ernestina Serwaa Asante.
Mr Asiamah stated that, “There’s a stall at the back, so if you are putting containers here, you are blocking the view of the stalls at the back.”
"When there is a fire outbreak too, the fire service people cannot bring any truck here to quench the fire so we want that place to be vacant for free movement so we prefer the table to the containers,” he lamented.
Meanwhile, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has denied carrying out such as operation and has promised to meet with various stakeholders to look for a long-lasting solution to this problem.
