Women Threaten Naked Demo

Close to 300 market Women at Techiman in the Brong Ahafo Region have threatened to embark on a massive naked demonstration following an alleged exploitation from the Techiman Municipal Assembly. According to the market women, the Techiman Municipal Assembly destroyed their sheds and promised to build new ones for them. They alleged that they paid various sums of money so that after the construction they would be allocated new sheds, but they were not given any receipt covering the monies. Fati Haruna, a trader at the market, told The Finder in an interview that though she had no money, she had to pay GH�600 to the Municipal Assembly so that she would also get a shed. �The Assembly told us to destroy our temporal stalls because they are going to construct a new one. I do not even have GH�50 as capital. I take goods from someone to sell before I get some money to take care of my family, but I have to squeeze to pay GH�600 cedis to the Assembly so that I would get a shed when constructed. When I paid the money and demanded my receipt, they refused to give it to me. I am not the only one affected; all the market women you can see here are victims,� Fati revealed. A concerned resident of Techiman, Kwadwo Adjei confirmed the situation to The Finder and revealed that he made a complaint to the Assembly about a month ago, yet nothing has been done about the situation. He noted that all the old sheds belonging to the market women have been destroyed and the women have been warned that unless they pay various sums ranging from GH�500 to GH�1,000, the new shed would be given to new traders. He revealed that a market manager by name Opoku Mensah is in charge of collecting the money from the market women. Efforts to get the market manager to comment on the story proved futile as his phone was off at the time of filing this report. However, the Public Relations Officer of the Techiman Municipal Assembly (TMA),Mr. Abdul Basit in an interview with The Finder note that he does not know anything about the situation, he denied the allegation that the Assembly has collected money from the market women. The Techiman Market is one of the leading markets in the country and the entire West Africa sub-region. Currently, majority of the women sell their goods under the scorching sun because their sheds have been destroyed by the Assembly.