Two persons have been arrested in connection with a demolishing exercise at the Amasaman new market in the Ga West Municipality.
The new market is made up of wooden structures featured with concrete on the floor and sheds with roofing sheets.
Many structures belonging to traders there were destroyed this morning without prior notice. The traders are accusing the Municipal Chief Executive ,MCE of the area, Clement Wilkinson for sanctioning the exercise.
Speaking to Starr FM some traders lamented over the demolition exercise saying : ''The issue is that we sell by the roadside at Amasaman, myself its been a long time I started selling here. When I started, the whole place was bushy and armed robbers used to attack people and take their mobile phones so when its 4 pm no one could pass here. Now the place has been established and we sell by the roadside, the MCE told us he will get a place for us who sell by the roadside so the place was graded and we now sell by the roadside which was given to us by the Ministry of Agric. They have come to demolish our structures 3 times and the fourth one took place just yesterday and continued this dawn''.
''I was here when the whole thing began at 4.30am.6 police cars were brought in here with dogs and said we should not sell. They threw away and kicked all our produce'', another trader indicated.
Reports indicated that a new market is a temporal place which was given to ninety(90) people to trade there and currently about 200 people are occupying that particular area. The reason for the demolition is due to the fact that the market women have taken over the market and crowded the area.
Meanwhile, the Amasaman divisional police commander, Superintendent Christopher Komegah stated that the police will maintain their presence in the area to monitor the situationÂ
''There is no course for alarm, the place is totally in order now. Our men will be stationed there 24/7 , 2 arrests have been made so far. It's too early for you to be asking for charges, give us time and space to do our work''.
Responding to the accusations by the traders in reference to the demolition exercise, the MCE, Mr Clement Wilkinson said he did not sanction the demolition exercise and mentioned one Clement Dzato who facilitated the exerciseÂ
''I am not the one and the person who sanctioned the exercise is Clement Dzato am not the one. You can inquire from the police divisional commander, the person reported before they came here. I was at the office when they called me and told me what has happened and that was why I came here. They keep on saying the person who sanctioned the demolition exercise is Clement and am not the one''.
''This land belongs to the Ministry of Agric and the ministry said no, we will not allow you sell on our land so please they can go ahead and look for the people who carried out the demolition exercise, am not the one'', he added.