Alfred Vanderpuye
The inconsistent manner in which the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) is managing the decongestion of the nation’s capital leaves much to be desired.
The intermittent exercise is a reflection of how haphazard things are done by state agencies with political expedience assuming priority over all other things.
The decongestion of Accra’s central business district is one area the Mayor has sought to make his mark in, regardless of its social cost to the country. He presented a picture of someone who had landed in Ghana with a magic wand that could change the face of things in the stubborn segments of the city.
After escaping from the challenges of his citizenship, it was a project he embarked upon with a fury.
Very soon though, he lost steam and appeared to have been subdued by the hawkers’ resolve to hold their grounds. He was further weakened by a pending election, a reality which demanded that he turn his attention away from the eyesore street hawking presents.
All we are saying is that a situation is either bad or good regardless of how politicians seek to manipulate it to their advantage.
Street hawking is good when elections are around the corner but bad when the curtains are drawn over the polls when politicians at the helm to achieve their objectives.
That is the message the Mayor of Accra is telling residents and street hawkers in particular. There is no use any longer for their votes and so time is due to chase them like hares during a hunting expedition.
If the Mayor of Accra, Alfred Vanderpuye, believes that hawkers should not be allowed to sell their wares on pedestrian pavements, he should not waver in his resolve to instil sanity in these portions of the city.
When he, however, withdraws his enforcement team simply because elections were around the corner and his employer would not want to lose the favour of the teeming hawkers, then the project smacks of dishonesty and insincerity.
Self-serving shows by the Mayor, as are characteristic of him, are not favourable to the development of the city and the earlier he puts a stop to them the better.
Enforcing decency on the pavements is something that should not be compromised. Given the social cost involved in denying the hawkers their means of daily bread, policymakers must search their heads for a better option in dealing with the challenge their occupation poses.
After allowing them to return to the pavements and subtly assuring them of safe operations and even pretending to apologise to them for previous actions against them, now the law enforcers from the AMA are back on the streets wielding their sticks menacingly at the hawkers.
When another Yuletide and elections are around, they would be given another chance to return, briefly.
Are we serious at all as a people? We do not think so!