The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has descended heavily on owners of livestock in the capital, enforcing strictly by-laws of the Assembly.

A swoop conducted by the Assembly on Friday saw several livestock carted away.

The AMA claimed owners will only be allowed to take their cattle away if they convince the Assembly.

“They are straying,” Dr Simpson Boateng, the Director of the Public Health Department of the Assembly, said of the animals in the capital. “They are causing traffic jam. They are causing accidents and even occasionally they are killing people and they deface the beauty of the city especially in the morning. So it is quite a nuisance.”

He announced that owners of stray livestock have seven days, failure of which their animals will be “auctioned”.