The management of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) has explained why it could not have taken full cost of the relocation of traders from the old Takoradi Market Circle to a temporary new site.
The traders were moved from the old Market Circle to a temporary new site following the decision to reconstruct the place.
Traders who owned shops at the Takoradi Market Circle had to cough up between GH¢600 and GH¢1,000 to be allocated stores at the temporary new site.
That apart, they had to cart their goods to the new site at their own cost.
This led to the traders, particularly those who owned large stores, to incurring additional hefty costs.
A large size store owner, for instance, told this reporter that he spent over GH¢2,000 in carting his goods to a warehouse.
That is apart from those who had to rent stores outside because the ones allocated them by the STMA were too small in size. Stores like Lucky Bazaar, Diana Elizabeth Chemist, O & O Supermarkets amongst others are said to have resorted to renting stores outside because the STMA allocated stores were small in size.
Considering that it was the STMA that came to the decision to relocate the traders to pave way for the market’s reconstruction, many were of the view that the Assembly should have taken the full cost of the relocation.
But, speaking in a telephone interview with The Chronicle, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the STMA disagreed.
John Laste told this reporter: “There was no way we could have taken the entire cost of the relocation of the traders.”
According to Laste, though the Assembly would have wished to have taken full cost of the relocation, burden sharing between the Assembly and the traders was appropriate in the relocation.
His reason was that though the Assembly rents stores to the traders, and the latter, in turn, pays rent, it did not make profit from the rent.
“This is a social intervention to enhance the economic life of traders. At markets, we do not take economic rates for store rentals. So we are not an economic oriented Assembly.”
For this reason, it would be unfair for anyone to suggest that the Assembly should have borne the full cost of the relocation of the traders, PRO Laste told this paper.
He said for now, the STMA had expended over GH¢6 million on the preparation of the new site to accommodate the traders temporarily. The amount, he said, included rents paid in advance for tenants who hitherto occupied the place now turned into a temporary market.
John, however, told this reporter that if the argument of those pushing for the STMA to bear the full cost of the relocation were to hold, it would mean the reconstruction of the old Market Circle would delay.
Again, the STMA would have to factor the total cost of relocation and later pass it onto the same traders when the reconstruction of the market was completed.
This, he said, the Assembly did not want to do, for the simple reason that it exists not to make profit, but better the economic welfare of the people.
The post STMA: We could not have taken full cost of relocation of traders appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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