Accra, Jan. 9, GNA - Owners of kiosks and containers dotted along roads in the Accra Metropolis were on Tuesday asked to remove them and move their wares into shopping malls and street corner super markets to bring sanity to the city.

Mr Stephen Asamoah Boateng, Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment, made the call on Tuesday when he interacted with kiosk owners along the Dzorwulo railway line, saying the placement of such kiosks and containers had become an eyesore.

"We cannot continue to allow all our road sides and the frontage of our homes to be dotted with all sorts of kiosks or containers. We have to move all the wares and goods to a shopping centre; mall or the like to curb the associated environmental problems," he said. Mr Boateng said the Government was liaising with private developers to identify spaces within communities, where shopping malls could be built so that the condition would be under control.

"We know you have invested in your kiosk and containers so the Government is giving you all the time to recoup your investments. "We are also giving you time to make some capital to rent a modern store within a shopping mall to give decency to yourselves and the community," he told the traders.

Mr Asamoah Boateng expressing disappointment about the traders' lack of interest in organized interaction programmes said the show of apathy would not stop the Government from carrying out its mandate of clearing encroachers from its land when the time was due. He said almost all kiosks and containers were illegal structures irrespective of area, because most were built without permit from the City Authorities.

He expressed regret that people slept in the containers and kiosks, which aggravated the problem with the environmental sanitation since such places lacked places of convenience and waste disposal receptacles. "We don't want people sleeping in kiosks and containers any more. Every resident deserves a proper place of abode so that all the laws governing the City can be applied to the fullest," he said. Mr Asamoah Boateng said a number of places of convenience would be built in the Metropolis, while landlords were also expected to provide sanitary facilities in the homes for their tenants. "Every place that people meet for more than three hours such as churches, markets and the like are all expected to have functioning places of convenience, he said.