Prime News Ghana

AMA clears Nkrumah Interchange after inauguration: Pedestrians happy, Hawkers angry

By primenewsghana.com
Parts of the decongested perimetre
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While commuters and drivers are happy for the completion of Kwame Nkrumah Interchange, hawkers around the area are displeased.

Their displeasure stems from a directive by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) asking them to vacate the area or have their structures demolished.

Hawkers had, for the most part of the three-year construction period, been using the pedestrian walkways to sell their wares especially during the night.

This had been inconveniencing pedestrians who had to compete with hawkers for spaces to walk and just a day after President John Mahama opened the over GHC320 million three-tier flyover, city authorities have moved to decongest the area

But according to some of the aggrieved hawkers, the time given by the AMA for them to vacate was too short.

“They were saying we shouldn’t sell by the roadside. They also told us who sell beyond the pavement has been asked to move our things. Today the AMA people were with soldiers. Now I don’t know where I will be going,” one of the hawkers told Citi FM on Tuesday.

Some pedestrians are, however, very pleased about the development and have urged the AMA not to make the decongestion a flash in the pan.

For one of the pedestrians, “it is in the right direction such that if the AMA is able to maintain it then residents would be assured of their walkway such that they are not pushed by the road where some people are knocked down by vehicles. What is important is their ability to sustain this effort so the hawkers don’t return. So I only pray that it is sustained".

“I am walking freely today here but the issue of hawkers has been a national problem for a very long time. So I think they should be confined in a particular place, they should be relocated, they shouldn’t be totally wiped off,” another added.

Below are photos of some of the demolished structures courtesy citifmonline:hawkers-at-circle-interchange-1

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