Commercial drivers and traders within the jurisdiction of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) who have abandoned the lorry parks and the markets and operating on the streets have been given a five-day ultimatum to leave the streets or they will be evicted with effect from Tuesday, February 1, 2022.
The Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council (RCC), which has issued the ultimatum, says the various stakeholders in the AMA would hit the streets to sack all traders and drivers who will fail to comply with the order.
The RCC says the move forms part of the “Operation Clean Your Frontage” campaign which will start on February 1 in the Accra Central Business District (CBD), Ashaiman Municipal and Tema Metropolitan areas.
Besides, the other assemblies in the region will begin similar exercises within their jurisdictions and follow them up with the other aspects of the campaign.
About 20,000 volunteers deployed from the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), the National Service Secretariat, the assemblies and the City Response Team will undertake the exercise.
The RCC says the exercise in Accra would begin with a mass education and sensitisation programme so that the affected people would not say they have been ambushed.
The Accra exercise is meant to achieve the goal of “Making Accra Work Again”.
It will be recalled that on October 21, last year, the Greater Accra Coordinating Council (RCC) announced that it had completed a legal framework for the start of the Clean Your Frontage Campaign, an initiative for all households and organisations to clean and beautify their frontage.
The RCC also said it had completed consultations on the bye-laws to govern the initiative, which was launched the same month.
As part of the campaign, the Chief of the Defence Staff was requested to train 3,000 civilians, to be known as the City Response Team, to enforce the bye-laws.
In addition, the waste management company, Zoomlion Ghana Ltd, was said to have been contracted to create refuse collection points in all the 29 MMDAs in the region.
At the time the RCC said a two-month period of grace had been earmarked for mass education and awareness creation, so that people would get to know about the campaign.
The foregoing information shows that the February 1 exercise in the AMA area and elsewhere in the Greater Accra Region is not meant to take anyone unaware, which means that only recalcitrant drivers and traders would wait and get embarrassed on February 1 and days following it.
However, no one should think that all would be rosy with the exercise because some drivers, traders and others like them would surely dare the team undertaking it in Accra and elsewhere in the region.
What then would worsen the situation would be individuals and groups who would plead human rights into the whole thing.
Much as the Ghanaian Times supports all efforts to uphold the rights of individuals and groups, it thinks it is untoward when human rights activists jump into everything, trying to prevent even actions that are beneficial to the health, wellbeing and socio-economic lives of the people.
For instance, currently there are people asking others to avoid COVID-19 vaccination because they have the right of choice, even though medical scientists say the vaccination is good.
On this occasion, the Ghanaian Times would like to remind the public that the ‘Operation Clean Your Frontage’ campaign and all actions connected with it are being carried out under law and that whoever tries to hamper it risks being prosecuted.
The campaign bearers, obviously the assemblies, should, therefore make it a point that they would apply the law in order to ensure its success now and forever.
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