Traders at the Central Business District in Accra have applauded the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) for driving away hawkers and other persons selling on the streets in Accra.

During a recent decongestion exercise, the AMA drove away all hawkers on the streets and footbridges in the capital.

Reacting to this development, Juliana Brown Afari, Former National Coordinator, Informal Hawkers and Vendors Association, told Chief Jerry Forson, host of the Ghana Yensom show on Accra 100.5FM on Thursday, 11 January, 2018 that: “We want the AMA to sustain this exercise, it'll go a long way to help traders in the markets because we pay taxes, we pay tolls but these hawkers don’t. There is this perception among some of the people that this action by the AMA will stop very soon but we want to appeal to the AMA to continue this exercise, we are happy with the action.”

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of the AMA, Mohammed Nii Adjei Sowah, has said the decongestion exercise by the Assembly will be sustained until the city is kept clean.

He told Accra FM on Monday January 8 that: “The hawkers should be law abiding because it is the Metropolitan Security Committee's decision endorsed by the regional security committee.

“We have police officers and military personnel as members of the task force for this exercise and I'm not too sure that it is in anybody’s interest to go and fight the police, that will not be accepted. And so, we are just encouraging the traders to be law abiding to ensure a peaceful city.

He added: “The exercise cost a lot of money to the city authority. However, with the kind of support from stakeholders like the media, we'll continue to talk to the traders and everybody to ensure the exercise is sustained.”