The Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the police will from next week wage war on traders and hawkers on the streets of Accra as part of a major decongestion exercise.

From Monday, January 8, 2017, a taskforce made up police and personnel from the AMA will forcefully evict hawkers and traders who have encroached on pavements, footbridges, other open sources and all ceremonial routes remain adamant.

Mayor of Accra, Mohammed Adjei Sowah, has said the decongestion is a city-wide exercise that will be sustained.

“We are encouraging all the hawkers and the petty traders to move back inside the markets. We want to fashion out a strategy to be able to sustain it,” he said.

Also, a press release from the AMA announcing the decongestion exercise indicated that enough notice has been given to those who will be affected.

According to the statement, the continuous activities of street hawkers are a contributory factor “to the heaps of garbage deposited along the roads.”

Kwame Nkrumah Interchange, Kaneshie Market, N1 Highway, are among the priority areas marked for the decongestion exercise.

The AMA has also cautioned hawkers along the Barnes Road and the Kwame Nkrumah Circle to vacate the place with immediate effect, failure of which they will be punished according to the hawkers’ by-law of 2011.