The mayor of Accra, Dr Alfred Vanderpuije, has denied knowledge of any directive by President Mills ordering him to stop decongesting the capital. Media reports said the President had given the order following concerns by some party bigwigs that the ongoing exercise was ill-timed and had the potential of affecting the electoral fortunes of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Earlier, a Minister of State at the Presidency, Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, confirmed to Joy News the President was unhappy with the exercise. “Knowing who the President is, I knew very well that he would not support the action and the timing,” Nii Afotey Agbo said. But Dr Vanderpuije told a press conference on Tuesday that the President has not given any such directive. The mayor said it was unlikely that the President would call to issues such an order as the government is “learning from the past.” “He (the President) knows the work of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly. He and I talk all the time. He will not call Alfred Vanderpuije or issue orders through somebody. If he has a concern, he is the president [and] he has the right to talk to me and he does that faithfully all the time,” Dr Vanderpuije said. Meanwhile the purported directive has generated confusion in parts of the Accra metropolis between hawkers and city guards. Whereas the hawkers insist they must be allowed to sell on pavements, the city guards argue the directive from the President was about demolition and not decongestion. Source: Myjoyonline.com/Ghana