The minister (inset) and his guests during the engagement
THE GREATER Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, has declared that come February 1, 2022, his office would move with full force to various parts of the city towards the implementation of the ‘Operation Clean Your Frontage’ (OCYF; or #operationcleanyourfrontage) campaign.
Scheduled to kick-start officially on Tuesday next week, the campaign will see landlords, business owners, property managers etc take responsibility of the sanitation at the frontage of their properties.
The minister therefore appealed to persons involved in all sorts of business activities at unauthorised places to move into their respective markets between now and January 31.
Persons who fail to comply to the directives, he cautioned, would see a ‘massive showdown’ as he, together with his team, would discharge their duties without fear or favour.
He sounded this caution during a forum with key stakeholders in the campaign at the Accra Metropolitan Assembly conference room on Tuesday.
Stakeholders
The meeting featured participants drawn from various professional and nonprofessional groupings including the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU); the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA); association of market queens from across the city, among others.
Minister’s Appeal
Mr. Henry Quartey appealed to the leadership of the various groups whose members may be found wanting in respect of any of the directives to as a matter of urgency, go and inform them to do the needful.
Leaders of driver unions were also mandated to ensure that their members who load and offload passengers on unauthorised parts of the streets desist from such acts.
Several of similar directives went to other stakeholder groupings.
Locations
The minister identified some places that had huge numbers of traders and hawkers engaging in brisk business activities.
They include Circle, Odawna, Lapaz, Okaishie, Farisco, CMB, Kinbu (Tudu), and Kaneshie (from First Light to Obetsebi Lamptey Circle).
Reaction From Participants
Queen of the Greater Accra Market Women Association made a stunning revelation that majority of the traders and hawkers along the edge of the streets already had stalls in the markets.
She said: “They use their stalls as wholesale points where they come and pack their goods from early in the mornings to go display them on the roads,” adding that, “The stalls were not made for wholesale operations!”
Aunty Dede, also a market woman from the Odawna Market, added that market women from her station also left their stalls all the way to Tudu only to go and sell on the streets, with some leaving as early as 1am – 2am.
It emerged that a ‘common cry’ on the lips of all the market women was: “All our markets have been deserted!”
By Nii Adjei Mensahfio