Tema to be decongested; hawkers, squatters to be moved

The Tema Metropolitan Assembly on Saturday engaged residents, hawkers and other stakeholders in the Metropolis to create a decongestion plan of action.

The exercise, to clear the Harbour City's central business area of hawkers and illegal structures, is to make the city motorable, save lives and properties.

The Assembly had earlier given a month notice to hawkers and owners of kiosks located at unauthorised places to relocate.

Mr Felix Mensah Nii Anang-La, Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive, said some people need to be reminded of their duties and rights and the need to keep the maritime and industrial hub clean and beautiful.

He was speaking after a clean-up exercise to get the Metropolis ready for Ghana’s 61st Independence Anniversary celebration.

The 61st independence anniversary clean-up exercise was launched in Accra with a focus on keeping Ghana clean and help curb the increasing rate of malaria and cholera in the society.

Mr Anang-La said Tema had a crucial role to play in the national agenda of environmental cleanliness and the good health of the individual is the key component for wealth creation.

He said Tema was a well-planned city with great potentials for investment and that the containers which were put on pavements, sewer pipes and waterways at the central business district was taking away the beauty of the city, adding that, “hawkers have taken over the location where the Greenwich Meridian line passes.”

“The Greenwich Meridian is the place Prince Philip, a Royal of the British Monarchy commissioned in the Millennium and this would be developed to a major tourist attraction site in Tema to generate revenue for development.”

He said apart from the Community One main market, there were other satellite markets at communities Two, Four, Seven, Nine and Sakumono which have been abandoned and sellers have flooded the streets of the central business area creating vehicular and pedestrian congestion.

''Those who have sheds in the Community One market have turned them into warehouses where they keep their goods at night and move them to the pavements to sell the following morning.''

“The Assembly today is giving the final notice to owners of the sheds to occupy them or they would be reallocated. The Assembly as part of its measures to eject squatters on the dilapidated Meridian Hotel building, would soon block all entry points into the building.