Sugarcane vendors have been ordered to vacate all principal streets in the Accra Metropolis or face arrest and prosecution.

They were also advised to concentrate on their activities only in designated markets places to help solve the sanitation problems confronting the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Emmanuel Akrofi Bruce, Acting Director of Metropolitan Public Health Department of the AMA, on Monday said this in an interview.

He said the activities of the vendors have resulted in littered streets and choked gutters in the city.

He said the vendors were also supposed to come for medical tests because of the unhygienic handling of sugarcane before bagging, "but none of them had surfaced for the tests since the screening exercise started."

Bruce said more stringent measures would be taken on food and water safety, as well as enforcement of the sanitation bye-laws of the AMA.