Assembly men demand fair allocation of stalls in Agormanya market

Some Assembly men in the Manya Krobo Municipal Assembly of the Eastern Region have kicked against the allocation of market stalls to some market women in the Agormanya market, demanding that all assigned stalls be declared null and void.

The sharing of the 188 lockable stalls built by the former government under the tenure of the former MCE for Lower Manya Krobo, Simon Kweku Tetteh with the support of the World Bank, has become controversial following disagreements over the exercise with the top and down spaces going for GHS 8,000 and GHS 10,000 respectively.

The Assembly men together with some disgruntled market women say the allocations did not follow due process, citing favouratism and bias in the exercise led by the former MCE, Simon Kweku Tetteh.

Assembly man for Agormanya-South electoral area, Rafat Mohammed in an interview questioned the basis and criteria used for the allocations, arguing that the erstwhile NPP government under whose tenure the stalls were put up, were no longer in power and the exercise therefore left for the new government.

According to him, traders who were evacuated to pave way for the project should be given the due priority before the others.

“the NPP government did not allocate the stalls before leaving power but the stalls are now being allocated so we’ve decided to lock down the stalls allocated.

“There were traders here before they were evacuated for the construction of the stalls and those people must be attended to before the others,” he argued.

Hon Rafat called on the national security to intervene in the issue and investigate the alocations to ensure that the right thing is done.

Some of the market women who spoke with GhanaWeb, expressed their frustration over the allocation process, lamenting that traders whose structures were pulled down to pave way for the project, were being overlooked for others.

One of them said, “We were asked to write our names but some are being called clandestinely and given the stalls."

According to them, those who previously occupied the location were left out of the distribution leaving them displaced.

"We occupied this space but were removed for the project and we should therefore be given priority in the allocations but this wasn't done," another agitated trader told GhanaWeb.

They also raised concerns over the amounts being charged, saying that they were on the high side.

The Assembly men and traders are therefore calling on the government to ensure that due process is followed in the allocation exercise.