Regional News of Tuesday, 19 December 2023

Source: classfmonline.com

Tema Station: Market women protest eviction amid unfulfilled promises

The aggrieved market women in the studio of Accra 100.5 FM The aggrieved market women in the studio of Accra 100.5 FM

Approximately 400 market women operating at Tema Station in the Korle Klottey Constituency, Greater Accra Region, are expressing frustration and anger over an eviction notice issued without a viable alternative.

The women, who conduct their trade behind the Theodore Okoh Hockey Pitch near the Public Works Department (PWD) yard, are displeased with the decision to relocate them for the construction of stalls in the area.

Clad in red, the aggrieved women claim that despite promises of stall allocations by the Municipal Chief Executive of the Korle Klottey Municipal Assembly, they have been asked to vacate the area following the completion of the stalls.

The women, led by Mercy Larbi, took their concerns to Accra 100.5 FM's morning show, Ghana Yensom, hosted by Odeyeeba Kofi Essuman on Tuesday, December 19, 2023.

According to the protesters, the stalls are being sold at exorbitant prices, leaving ordinary market women with limited options to acquire the spaces.

They argued that when they were brought to the area by former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, the founder of the 31 December Women Movement, it was a wetland.

Over the past thirty years, they claim to have invested in filling the waterlogged areas with gravel, contributing to the area's transformation.

The women expressed a sense of neglect, stating that when the area was undesirable, they were left to their own devices.

Now that the location has become popular, they feel mistreated and disregarded, they contested.

The protesters appealed to their Member of Parliament for the area, Zenator Agyemang Rawlings, and the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, to intervene and address their concerns, emphasising that their pleas over the past few years appear to have gone unanswered.