Chaos at Amasaman as Traders protest ‘unannounced demolition’ exercise

There was chaos at Amasaman, a suburb of the Ga West Municipality in the Greater Accra Region on Friday morning following a demolition exercise at the market.

The angry market women accused the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for the area, Clement Wilkinson, of spearheading the demolition exercise; a claim the he denied.

According to them, they have lost thousands of cedis as a result of the exercise which happened on Friday dawn.

Some of the victims claimed the exercise was undertaken without prior notice from the Assembly.

Speaking to Citi News, one of the leaders of the disgruntled traders, Stephen Adu Adjei, issued a seven-day ultimatum to President Nana Akufo-Addo to call Clement Wilkinson to order or risk losing votes in the 2020 general elections.

“I am saying on authority it was the MCE, because of his greedy interest, he sent people to come and destroy the place.  He is going for the primaries and because those of us here don’t support him, he wants to demoralize us.”

“We are sending this caution to Nana Addo; We are giving an ultimatum of 7 days to do something about the situation or we will go to their office to remove them. Amasaman cannot contain us.”  He said.

Other market women who spoke to Citi News were angry over the demolition.

“This dawn in the market, we we saw that Police officers holding guns had arrived and all of a sudden began demolishing some of our structures without any explanation.”

“I sell at a spot on the shoulder of the road and we were given a new spot. I managed to get funds totalling 500 cedis to buy cement to fix my place only for the police to bring down my structure. I don’t understand the reason behind it…We are all Ghanaians; some are NDC members, others are NPP, so why do they have to do this?”

But the MCE, Clement Wilkinson denied the claim.

“According to them, there are claiming the person is Clement but I am not the one. You can go to the Police Divisional Commander, the person reported before they came here, you can listen to them. I was at the hospital and I heard what was going on and this is why I came here… Do you think I will do this [spearhead the demolition exercise] if I was running for an election in the area.”

Unauthorised structures along Odorkor highway demolished

This comes on the back of recent demotion exercises in the Greater Accra Region.

Hundreds of unauthorized structures along the Odorkor highway were demolished on Friday by the Ablekuma North Municipal Assembly.

Occupants of the structures accused the Assembly of not giving them a prior eviction notice and demanded compensation from the government.

Demolition at Maamobi