Odawna traders rally against Assembly over pavement demarcations

Traders at Odawna Shopping Mall at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra are up against the Klottey Korle Municipal Assembly over the decision to demarcate the pavement in front of the burnt Mall for them to sell their wares as the government prepares to put up a befitting market for them.

The traders said the pavement is too small and cannot contain all of them hence, the assembly should rather open the ground zero for them in the interim to trade there.

Hundreds of stalls at the Odawna Market at Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra were burnt on Wednesday, November 18, 2020.

The fire left residents of the area and shop owners at the market, also known as the Pedestrian Shopping Mall in shock.

The Municipal Assembly has accordingly started its demarcation but the traders believe they were not ready to sell on the pavements.

They explained that apart from not being adequate for entire traders and the danger it would pose to both traders and their customers, they would be ejected after the December elections and the Christmas which will also bring another challenge.

They are therefore appealing to President Nana Adoo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to prevail on the Municipal Assembly to halt the demarcation exercise and re-grade the market for them to start selling in the market.

MASLOC validation

Meanwhile, the Microfinance and Small Loan Centre (MASLOC) was in the market to begin the validation of over 4,000 victims of the fire disaster to enable them begin payment of some reliefs by Friday Friday, November 27.

Currently, the Klottey Korley Municipal Assembly has furnished MASLOC with the names of the traders and they are giving each one of them a special loan package to enable them to re-start business before Christmas.

Speaking on the validation exercise on Onua FM’s Yen Sempa on Tuesday hosted by Nana Okyere Awurukuo, the Greater Accra Regional Director of MASLOC, Dennis Okyere Danso, “the assembly has given us the number of traders and MASLOC is going for the information about the traders to enable us give them money by Friday”.

Mr. Okyere Danso explained that to be able to qualify for the relief fund, every trader must come alone with “two passport size pictures and a photocopy of any national ID”.

He explained that MASLOC would do the exercise in a round figure of 1000 and then make the monies available to them before it can continue.