Correspondence from Ashanti Region

Section of traders at the New Kejetia Market have expressed concerns over their security, both spiritually and physically.

Most of these traders who operate their trade on the first floor of the market said that the lack of CCTV cameras within most parts of the market makes things worse. They said the planting of charms and the intrusion of suspected criminals put them in fear.

Their current calls and concerns follow an alleged planting of suspected charm (juju) at the back of a woman's shop and other places recently.

According to them, the planting of charms in addition to thievery in the market put them in fear.

Blaming all those unfortunate occurrences on poor security systems, the disappointed traders urged authorities to fix CCTV cameras and provide quality security for them.

"We have some of the CCTV cameras around some places within the market but in our area here we don't have. Even some of the CCTV cameras we can see in those places do not function. This is a big source of worry but because it is about security, we can't speak much. But the truth is that most of the cameras function well except a few of them. However, the major challenge we have here is that there are many places in which we don't have cameras", one of the traders said.

He further disclosed the real cause of the current occurrences by indicating that, "the late presentation of the local government minister's committee report has been one of the causes. We told the committee all these issues during our meeting with them. If they had presented it, it would come to light for the authorities to resolve".

Another trader said, "When we were coming here, they informed us that there were cameras here but we came only to observe that all those statements were lies. We came here the other to see that someone had entered this market, dug the ground and hidden something in front of someone's shop. If there were cameras here, the person would have been caught on tape. The situation is only creating fear and panic for us, and that's very worrying".

"This is the only one I have personally seen but we hear news of such incidents. There is a woman who recently complained of a similar incident. Someone had hidden a charm near her shop. Many are the incidents that occur here but because there's no camera, we can't see anything".

Meanwhile, Akua Agyeiwaa, a trader at the market who was said to have recently experienced a similar "juju" plantation at her store said she recently arrived at the market to see some juju(a charm) planted at the back of her shop.

She further revealed that this had not been the first time they had experienced such a juju scare".

Other traders who expressed fear over the incidents called on the authorities to tighten security in the market by fixing CCTV cameras and providing more competent security officers.

"We know there are some security officers here. But if they were competent enough, why would some criminals be able to enter the market and plant juju'? We owe our shops but live in fear due to many of these juju juju things", a disappointed female trader who gave her name as Alice posed this question in an interview with GhanaWeb.

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