A group of Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) guards led by a certain man and some armed policemen descended upon the Tiptoe Lane of the Circle business district last Saturday.
It turned out that the operation they undertook was unauthorized.
Moses Abor, the Head of the AMA Rapid Response Unit at Circle, said that at the time of the operation, he and the Chief Executive of the AMA were attending a church service in commemoration of the second anniversary of the June 3 Circle disaster.
“The AMA Chief Executive was unaware about the operation being undertaken by Chief Okine and his men, including some policemen. I quickly moved to the place and confronted them, since the Tiptoe Lane segment of the area was not part of the places outlawed for hawking,” he said.
The Chairman of the Circle Youth Traders Association (CYTA), Hashim Hamid, expressed disgust about the development, saying “we have assured our people that the areas they should not hawk on are the pavements along Caprice to Vienna City up to VIP area. This is what the AMA boss told us and we are determined to ensure this. For them to come do what they did last Saturday is mind-boggling.”
The AMA team however turned their attention to the Sadisko traffic light through Vodafone to the Odaw Rice, something which appears to have strained the relationship between the executives of the CYTA and traders.
The chairman has in a release asked traders to count on the executives to protect their interests, especially if they restrict their activities to the areas earmarked for them.
“We are in the leadership to protect our common interests and would not do anything that would affect these. Let us disabuse our minds that we are doing the opposite,” Hashim said.
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