Kwadaso onion traders evicted by soldiers, relocated to new marketplace

A joint military-police taskforce has forcefully evicted onion sellers at Kwadaso and relocated to a new place in the municipality to transact their business.

The forceful eviction became necessary after the traders resisted several directives by the Ashanti Regional Security Council (RESEC) to move to the new place earmarked for them.

The Ashanti Regional Security Council (RESEC) had served several notices on the traders to relocate to a new convenient place which had been allocated to them to conduct their business activities.

The Council, in a statement, cited security risk of motorists, pedestrians and traders and heavy vehicular traffic during peak hours as the reasons for the market’s relocation.

Under the supervision of the joint taskforce, the entire market structure accommodating over 2000 traders was brought down.

Some of the traders who spoke with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview expressed concern that the new marketplace was inadequate to contain all the traders.

Yakubu Sani, a trader confirmed to the GNA that they had been served eviction notices on countless occasions, but they kept adamant because of the inadequacy of the new place.

“We have been served with notices of eviction on countless occasions, but the reasons attached with the eviction are not tangible enough for us to move.

Also, where we are being located will witness the same situation in the few months to come when we all finally settle there, because of the space allocated to us, he observed.

Madam Yaa Brago, also a trader said “we are not saying we will not relocate, but the issue at hand is that the place is too small to contain all of us.

The new place is likely to pose the same traffic congestion as the Regional Security Council is complaining about.”

Whiles some of the onion traders have agreed to move to the new marketplace to secure their trading spot, others are bent on trading along the shoulders of the road.

GNA