Traders using Kasoa Zongo area given ultimatum to quit

Winneba, March 20, GNA - The Awutu Effutu District Assembly has given traders who have turned the Kasoa Zongo area into a market up to April 2 to quit the area or face prosecution. In a statement at Winneba on Monday, the Assembly said apart from offenders being arraigned before the court and fined their wares would be confiscated.

The statement said since the Assembly commissioned the new market complex more than a year ago, some traders had illegally turned the Kasoa Zongo Chief's palace and Mosque area and part of the demolished old market into an unauthorized trading centre.

It said that apart from undermining the operations of the new market the unauthorized trading centre was costing the Assembly a great deal of money in terms of revenue and refuse collection. According to the statement, within the past year, the Assembly had spent more than 100 million cedis to collect refuse generated by traders at the Zongo area.

It said all efforts to stop the illegal traders from operating the Zongo area had failed adding that to resolve the issue amicably the Assembly charged some key government officials in the District including the District Director of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and various security agencies in the district to discuss the issue with opinion leaders at Kasoa.

The statement said the team had met on several occasions with some opinion leaders in Kasoa including former MP for Awutu/Senya Papa Lamin Abu Sadat, Mr Mohammed Musa, former government appointee at the Awutu Effutu District Assembly and Alhaji Suraj with the view to finding a lasting solution to the problem.

It further stated that during the meeting the opinion leaders promise to stop the traders from using the Zongo area as a market centre at the end of December last year, but unfortunately three months after the agreed grace period, the traders had not moved.