Wassa-Akropong(W/R), May 08, GNA - Wassa-Amenfi East District Assembly in the Western Region, has banned trading activities along major highways within the communities with immediate effect. Madam Doris Gyapomaah Oduro, the District Chief Executive said the ban was to check rampant road accidents that had claimed many lives and properties of victims.

She announced this when briefing the Ghana News Agency at Wassa-Akropong on decisions taken at an emergency meeting between the assembly and representatives of transport unions, traders associations and other stakeholders at the weekend.

Madam Oduro said traders found displaying foodstuffs and other wares along highways within the communities would pay spot fine of 50,000 cedis, while drivers who parked their vehicles at unauthorised places would be fined 100,000 cedis.

She recalled an incident at Wassa-Akropong last week during which an articulated truck loaded with cocoa ran into traders along the road killing four of them.

Fifteen others who received various degrees of injuries were admitted at the Wassa-Akropong Government hospital. The DCE appealed to the people to cooperate with the assembly to enforce the ban "that is in the best interest of all and sundry to avert similar disasters."

She said the assembly would soon erect road signs and provide road markings at vantage points to alert drivers, pedestrians and other road users.

When GNA visited the town a week after the accident, it was realised that display of wares along the highway, hawking and haphazard parking of vehicles particularly on market days was absent. 08 May 06