AMA Boys Run Amok

Posted: Daily Guide | Friday, 12 March 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
AUTHORITIES OF the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) yesterday unleashed their taskforce on innocent traders at the Pedestrian Shopping Mall at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra.

The taskforce, numbering about 50 and led by a police sergeant whose name was given as George, wrecked the tables on which the traders were selling their goods.

Sergeant George is said to be in charge of security at the Pedestrian Shopping Mall.

Members of taskforce, who were wielding clubs, went to the mall in two trucks.

Meanwhile, the traders claim they were not given any prior notice before the exercise.

Immediately they entered the mall, between 8:30 and 9am, the burly members of the taskforce started vandalizing the tables on which traders were selling their goods, after which they proceeded to destroy goods, including foodstuffs.

In the process, members of the taskforce hit a middle-aged woman, Madam Boakyewaa, on the neck as she attempted to protect her goods and table from being destroyed.

The woman collapsed instantly as members of the team looked on unconcerned.

Some traders attempted to rescue their collapsed colleague and send her to the hospital for treatment, but the members of the taskforce would not budge. Their pleas to take Madam Boakyewaa to the hospital fell on deaf ears.

For fear of losing her colleague, 60-year-old Esther Odi mustered the courage to approach the team and ask for Madam Boakyewaa’s release. Madam Odi’s plea however provoked the taskforce further, and she too was clubbed.

They then pounced on her whilst the innocent woman was writhing in pain on the ground.

Upon realising that things were getting out of hand, members of the taskforce rushed Madam Boakyewaa to the famous Holy Gardens where they made frantic efforts to revive her.

They poured several bags of sachet water on her before she regained consciousness, after which she was handed to her colleagues.

One of the traders who managed to record the entire incident on his G.Tide mobile phone had to give it up to the taskforce after they found out.

When the phone was later released to him at the Holy Gardens office of the taskforce, the video and other still pictures he had taken during the exercise had all been deleted.

The affected traders have therefore appealed to the government, and for that matter the AMA, to allow them to sell their goods since most of them have dependants and families to take care of.

Aside from that, most of them claim they have contracted loans from banks, with which they are doing business and do not know how to pay them back without working.
Efforts to reach the market authorities and the AMA for their comments proved futile.