Some market women in Koforidua are protesting against the New Juabeng Municipal Chief Executive, Comfort Asante for moving traders from their trading place.

Some of them who claimed they were not selling on the walkways told Joy News they have been assaulted, their wares seized and their eyes sprayed with pepper.

The New Juabeng Assembly a few weeks ago decongested walkways and all unapproved selling points in the municipality.

Assembly authorities say the move is to rid the city of filth and congestion ahead of the Christmas festivities. 

However, the frustrated traders accuse the MCE of acting contrary to what they were promised in the run-up to the last general elections.

A woman told Joy News she is widowed and taking care of her three children and her old mother has been such a challenge so the action taken by the MCE will not help her and others like her.

They say they voted for President Akufo-Addo to get them jobs but since they have not yet been given any, they should be allowed to sell to make ends meet.

Led by a staunch activist of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kofi Aboagye, the traders marched through the principal streets of the regional capital, Koforidua, to drum home their grievances.

Mr Aboagye who expresses fear of his party losing massive votes in its stronghold says the MCE has turned a deaf ear to the plight of the market women despite several appeals.

He accused the MCE of treating the women inhumanely by driving them to a new place where there are no toilet facilities.

Mr Aboagye therefore, wants the president to call the MCE to order or sack her from the position for making him unpopular.

“The most painful thing is that it is these same women that we went to and appealed that they vote us into power. We never told them that when we get power, we will drive them away from where they are.

“Now that they have been driven out, those who have gone for loans, what are they going to do? This makes me sad because Koforidua is an NPP stronghold so how can we sit unconcerned for one person to make the party unpopular,” he bemoaned.

According to him, the nonchalant behaviour of the MCE will cost the party in the 2020 elections.