UPDATE: KMA cordons off Kejetia bus terminal for reconstruction work to begin
The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) yesterday cordoned off the Kejetia bus terminal to pave the way for the reconstruction of the terminal and the Kumasi Central Market.
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The exercise, supported by military and police personnel, started around 12.30 a.m. when there was virtually no activity at the terminal.
With the traders and drivers cleared from the terminal, the project, estimated at $298 million, is expected to begin soon.
A Brazilian construction firm, Contracta Engenharia Limited, is to execute the three-phase project.
As part of the relocation process, none of the shops within the terminal was allowed to operate yesterday. The shop owners were only allowed in to pack out their wares.
Some cried, saying they did not know how they were going to pay back the loans they contracted for their businesses and also cater for their families.
KMA
According to the Public Relations Officer of the KMA, Mr Godwin Okumah Nyame, yesterday’s exercise was part of measures it had agreed on with the traders and transport unions.He said it had been agreed that the traders and transport operators move to three other bus terminals to operate there.
Last Wednesday, the KMA, in collaboration with the transport operators, started moving the transport operators to the Afia Kobi Market, while others were sent to the Race Course, the Bantama and the Acheamfour terminals.
Mr Nyame indicated that every affected shop would be relocated outside the terminal and its owner adequately compensated.
Court Injunction
The petty traders at the terminal have filed a motion in court, seeking to place an injunction on the KMA from going ahead with the reconstruction of the Kejetia bus terminal.
The plaintiffs in the case, numbering more than 2,000, are praying the court to declare that the deliberate extension of the Kumasi Central Market project to the Kejetia Bus Terminal was wrong, illegal and a calculated attempt to overreach them.
During yesterday’s exercise, some of the traders gathered in groups and looked on helplessly, bemoaning their fate.
Meanwhile, truck pushers and tricycle owners had a field day as the traders hired them to cart their wooden structures and wares from the cordoned-off terminal.
Security
The presence of the combined team of armed policemen and their military counterparts kept the ejected traders at bay.
Some passengers became stranded, oblivious of the exercise underway. Even when their attention was drawn to what was happening, they did not know where to go to board vehicles to their destinations.
Robert Esua, a teacher who said he had visited his sister and was returning to Sefwi Wiawso, was advised by a policeman to go to the Afia Kobi Terminal, where vehicles travelling to the Western Region had been relocated.