Traders at Mpobi in the Afigya Kwabre district in the Ashanti region have refused to do business in an ultra-modern market 18 years after commissioning which was constructed at the cost of Five Hundred million old Ghana Cedis (GHC 500,000000).

The market project was completed in March, 2000 and commissioned by the former first lady Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings but traders have failed to utilize the facility, siting wrong location as their reason for abandoning the market.

The traders told OTEC news that the new market was too far from town, therefore no one was interested in walking there to do business. They said sending perishable items such as vegetables to the new market was a burden on traders because the goods get rotten easily and costing them a fortune.

The traders argued that construction of the market could have been substituted for a school in order to attract school going children from adjoining communities.

Mpobihene Nana Akwasi Akyeampong stated that recalcitrant traders in and around Mpobi community have chosen to sell their wares at several unauthorized places.

Nana Akwasi Akyeampong intimated that he done everything possible to get the traders relocated but they have always proved to be recalcitrant.

Assembly member for the Mpob electoral area, Yakubu Issifu, expressed his commitment to get the traders to the abandoned ultra-modern market. Yakubu Issifu disclosed that the absence of bye -laws to regulate hawkers in the Mpobi community was an incentive to traders to keep hawking around the community.

“I am making all efforts in collaboration with the unit committee members to cut down the tree which provide shade for the recalcitrant traders in order to relocate them to the new market” Yakubu Issifu stressed.

He promised to help the relocation all traders selling at unapproved by the end of 2018.