The Ashaiman Municipal Assembly (ASHMA) has taken steps to decongest the business district to make it safe for vehicular and pedestrian movements.

The exercise, which ensures that no trader will use the strrets for selling, comes on the hills of Thursday’s car accident at the same spot that claimed the life of 21-year-old Love Atsu and wounded six others.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after the decongestion exercise, the Ashaiman Market Queen Mother, Madam Leticia Ayaba, employed the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Ashaiman to be decisive in dealing with the menace of street markets.

She advised against arresting street hawkers, taking their wares to the assembly, fining them and releasing their wares back to them. saying "but when you are arrested and sent to court, you will pay a heavy fine and that would deter them from selling on the streets"

Madam Ayaba informed of the contribution of ASHMA in retaining the traders on the streets by saying, “If the place the person sells isn’t good, you don’t have to take tolls from them. Let them go to the right place, then you can take tolls. But if you take tolls from them where ever they are, they think the place is good for business.”

She observed that the shelves in the new market cost so much, and that most traders could not afford it..

She, however, observed that, “There are empty spaces in the old market for traders, and even those who hawk inside the market got patronised by customers, but they still stick to the road where they get quick money ”

The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Ashaiman, Mr Albert Boakye Okyere, reacting to the feedback from the decongestion exercise said, “We have made provision of five hundred stores at the Adjei Kojo end of Ashaiman, and we have also put lightening at Valco Flat market. The shelves are empty so we urge all of them to patronize those shelves to end congestion at the market.”

He warned that anybody who fell foul of the law would be prosecuted as the law would be allowed to take its full course.

The MCE said ASHMA had employed additional hands to assist the task force and city guards and, “We will ensure sustainability of the exercise so we’ll station people here permanently whilst we continue to give them other alternative spaces for business” .