The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei-Mensah, has given traders who have taken over the Kumasi Central Market footbridge one month to vacate the place or be forced out.<\/p>\n
The GHc2.2 million 70-meter bridge was built for the safety of pedestrians and to ease congestion at the Central Business District but the purpose has largely been defeated.<\/p>\n
Traders and hawkers have turned it into a thriving market, using it to do brisk business \u2013 with wares displayed on every inch of the bridge.<\/p>\n
Mr. Osei-Mensah, who spoke to reporters described the situation as deeply troubling and completely unacceptable.<\/p>\n
He said the intense pressure on the bridge \u2013 the weight on it, was creating safety concerns \u2013 potential risk of the bridge collapsing.<\/p>\n
He indicated that inaction by the Regional Coordinating Council and the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), could prove to be too costly.<\/p>\n
He said he was ready to fearlessly tackle the issue to ensure discipline in the Ashanti Regional capital.<\/p>\n
Mr. Osei-Mensah warned that recalcitrant traders would be arrested and prosecuted.<\/p>\n
The footbridge linking the Market with Adum and other parts of the district, was inaugurated in October, 2013, to allow for free pedestrian movement.<\/p>\n
The Minister said \u201cit is illegal for any trader to sell his or her wares on the footbridge, and as a law-abiding government we will not allow the wrong things to be done\u201d.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: GNA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei-Mensah, has given traders who have taken over the Kumasi Central Market footbridge one month to vacate the place or be forced out. The GHc2.2 million 70-meter bridge was built for the safety of pedestrians and to ease congestion at the Central Business District but the purpose has largely been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":296871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7017,3,1701],"class_list":["post-318126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-footbridge","tag-ghana-news","tag-kumasi-central-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=318126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=318126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=318126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=318126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}