Shop owners commend KMA for decongestion exercise
Shop owners in the Central Business District ( CBD) of Kumasi have commended the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) for taking the hard but necessary decision to decongest the area.
They said evicting the traders from the streets and pavements had brought discipline and sanity into the system.
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They made the commendation when the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE) of Kumasi, Mr Osei Assibey Antwi, paid an unannounced visit to some of the shops in the CBD to interact with the shop owners and also to know their views towards the decongestion exercise embarked upon by the KMA.
All the shop owners said the illegal trading activities on the pavements seriously affected their sales.
They admitted that it would also need the concerted efforts of all and sundry to make the exercise sustainable.
They assured the MCE that they would play their part well and urged him to advise the security agencies not to compromise their work when they were deployed to the area to ensure sanity.
Environmental cleanliness
Mr Antwi was accompanied on his rounds by the Deputy Minister of Railways Development, Mr Andy Kwame Appiah-Kubi, and the Metropolitan Roads Engineer, Nana Poku Agyeman.
The MCE advised the shop owners to keep their surroundings clean.
He stressed that it was the avowed aim of the KMA to ensure that the city become clean and green to enable it to regain its past accolade, ‘the garden city’.
Mr Antwi said the assembly had embarked on a major tree planting programme to make the dream become a reality.
He advised the shop owners to adhere to the bye-laws of the assembly on the time for offloading and loading their goods and wares in order to avoid unnecessary traffic jams in the CBD.
He expressed happiness for the understanding shown by the people about the decongestion exercise.
According to him, sanitation challenges in the CBD had come about as a result of many people selling at unauthorised places.
He assured that the security personnel would work hard to make the exercise achieved the desired objective.
Some of the shops visited included Franco Trading, St Mohicans Cosmetics and Ben Materials.