Some petty traders and hawkers at the central business district (CBD) of Accra and other commercial centres have appealed to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) to re-allocate the stalls at the Pedestrian Shopping Mall so that they could have a safer place to carry out their businesses. While a large portion of the mall, located at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, remains empty, the shoulders of roads and pavements at the various commercial centres in Accra are choked with hawkers and petty traders. The AMA began an exercise this year to decongest those centres but the success chalked up by the assembly is gradually being eroded as more traders find their way back onto the streets. The exercise, which was described by many residents as largely successful, could fail if the assembly does not take immediate steps to re-allocate the more than 3,000 empty stalls at the mall and compel traders to sell there. Currently, some recalcitrant hawkers have ignored AMA warnings and are still plying their trade along the shoulders of roads and pavements in the commercial centres where the exercise took place, with the excuse that they do not have anywhere to sell. "We have families; we also need food and shelter. Circumstances are pushing us to sell on these pavements," a trader on the foot bridge at Kaneshie said. The decongesting exercise, which started at Kaneshie after severe floods had swept through the area and destroyed lives and properties because underground channels were filled with garbage, continued to the CBD and finally to the Nkrumah Circle. Other areas which were decongested included the shoulders of roads leading to La and Achimota. A visit to the CBD on Monday indicated that although the AMA had managed to get some of the traders and their structures off the streets, more work was needed to completely keep them at bay. A few weeks after the exercise, the traders, mostly women, kept their wares in large plastic bags and beckoned passers-by to patronise them. Now many of these traders openly display their wares. Maame Joyce, a petty trader who sells second-hand clothes on the Derby Avenue, told the Daily Graphic that after the decongestion, she stayed at home for nearly two months but she began experiencing financial difficulties and had to come back onto the street. "I wish I had a stall at the Pedestrian Mall; I would have gone there to sell. I think it is safer there than standing for hours in this scorching sun," she said. The AMA, she stressed, must give the stalls to those who needed them, since they had been empty for too long. Madam Agnes Odame, who sells jewellery at the CBD, said she would be happy if she was given space at the mall. She explained that she had not been successful at getting space there during the first allocation. "As for me, I need a decent place to sell my jewellery and 1 will be very happy if the AMA can give these stalls to those of us who need them," she said. She explained that she had been to the mall on several occasions and felt that the traders who had abandoned it were being unfair to both themselves and the government. "I do not see why I should use money to buy space and fail to make use of it" she said. Source: Daily Graphic