Irate traders of the Pedestrian Shopping Mall at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra have threatened to resume hawking on the pedestrian walk-way if the city authorities do not take measures to halt the activities of others who are still hawking there.
According to the traders, those hawking outside the proposed shopping mall were making business impossible for them since purchasers no longer visit their stalls sited within the mall.
This, they added, is affecting their businesses badly, hence the threat to resume hawking on the streets if the Accra Metropolitan Authority do not intervene.
When Citi News visited the Pedestrian Shopping Mall which was built to house about 4,000 hawkers and street traders, the atmosphere was dead silent and lacked the usual brisk and busy transactions typical of a shopping center, apart from a few people transiting the mall.
Speaking to Citi News, one of the traders bemoaned the loss of customers due to the activities of traders hawking outside the proposed mall.
�We have always had this problem. The AMA must do something about it. People do not come to the mall because they get all they want outside. Some shoppers even say they do not know of the existence of the pedestrian shopping mall,� Lucy Mintah said.
Another trader, Mary Owusu, lamented: �It is about time something is done about the issue. How can some obey authorities to come and sell in the market whiles others remain outside? This must stop.�
One of the street hawkers, however, held a different view. �Customers will not buy even if we are all taken off the street and put in the mall. Ghanaians are impulsive buyers. When they see the goods on their way home, they are tempted to purchase them,� Brigitte Osei said.
The Pedestrian Shopping Mall traders said their incessant appeals to the AMA had yielded little results hence they might just abandon the Shopping Mall and join their colleagues on the streets if nothing is done in the subsequent weeks.
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