As part of the decongestion exercise currently on-going, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has employed the services of the police, fire and the prison service to sack hawkers from pavements to check recent human traffic on the streets.
The exercise starts at 7:00am and ends at 5.30pm, as instructed by the AMA boss, Alfred Vanderpuije. But some members of AMA�s taskforce have taken undue advantage of the exercise to molest innocent traders, including mothers and children along the streets of the capital.
Yesterday, Thursday, July 23rd 2009, morning, personnel from the prison service arrived in a TATA pickup and a KIA truck with registration numbers GR 2799 W and GW 8253 U respectively at the railway bus stop, near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, in an attempt to seize items of traders who had displayed them on the streets. They violently ransacked the area.
In the process, a woman who is believed to be in her mid-50�s was hit on the back by one of the prison officers with a stick. The attack rendered the old lady unconscious, but the prison officer did not bother to attend to the helpless woman but went on with their exercise.
But for the timely intervention of onlookers who took the woman to a nearby hospital, the trader could have joined her ancestors.The unfortunate situation has attracted condemnation from some of AMA�s own servicemen who are calling on their boss, Mr Vanderpuije, to come out with the dos and don�ts of the decongestion exercise because some of its task force has taken advantage of the opportunity to abuse and humiliate innocent people on the streets.
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