Accra: Taskforce clears unauthorised structures along Graphic Road | Citi Newsroom

the greater crowd regional minister henry corte upon assumption of office set out to make accra work again as part of his make greater crowd work again campaign the minister has embarked on a number of engagements with various stakeholders as well as several activities including clean up exercises and decongestion exercises on this particular edition of the city newsroom we're joining the regional minister who together with the callee clotted municipal assembly their blakuma central assembly as well as the accra metropolitan assembly have embarked on a decongestant exercise and a clean up exercise now though these assemblies are spearheading these two exercises under the auspices of the greater crowd regional coordination council the men on the ground are made up of the military the prison service the ghana fire service as well as officials of the national disaster management organization and so join us on this edition of the city newsroom as we bring you the various angles to this developing story will speak to the agencies involved the minister spearheading this campaign as well as the affected scottish and scrub dealers this area between the graphic communications group and the yeah man where the railway line runs it's known as the railways quarters now you can see behind me a bulldozer busily pulling down structures belonging to thousands of squatters who reside here obviously distraught obviously frustrated we have some of them joining us to share their thoughts their feelings to express their frustrations with us hello and welcome to the city news thank you first of all my name is gabriel mkwaji and i'm speaking behalf of my colleagues here and our problem here and we don't understand because the little informants that we should remove they are saying that those people around the roadside they should remove their sandboard and their billboard they said that through their insider community and they destroyed our property our our houses some of us we have gone to work and we are informed that they are destroying our property so we have to come back home and so that to arrange our uh properties and find another place and right now the government have to find a place for us so that will go and stay there and when nobody go there they have the right to find a place for you on what premise how should the government find a place for you yes a government can find a place like uh maybe madina or even somewhere on a summit and learn a piece of land so that everybody will go there and find a place to stay when nobody goes there they have the right to demolish our property and now they sell affordable houses with the youth the work that we are doing our salary is very small we don't have even it does not reach even tactical cities and we are suffering not affordable houses that the the government have a booth nobody is staying there and we are here suffering we are not a bad boy we are not a couple of people it has happened so i have nothing to do about it you see what they have done maybe they they did inform but i didn't hear i do live around but i didn't hear that maybe this would happen so it has already happened so i can't put a stop to it even you trying to put a stop to it you can be beaten and you beat an idiot you can see what will happen so going forward what will you do oh me i have nothing to do because if i come back from work and see that my my clothes or my building is demolition i can't do anything about it but i had one colleague saying that living in affordable house you see me working like what i'm working is what i can get to build a house i live in but he's saying that living in affordable housing can you take a gentleman to and live in affordable house we can never take a drunky man so if he even give that gentleman affordable house to leave you now he's going to waste it because one bread so that demolition exercise is stretching all the way from the railway line back onto the main road close to their overpass just around graphic communications now more affected persons are wailing scrambling to salvage what they can or whatever is left of their property there's another gentleman here let's find out from him how he has been affected [Music] [Music] let's speak to the greater crowd regional minister henry corte the man spearheading this particular campaign to make the great accra region work again help us understand the mission objective for this particular exercise now today we are here as part of the decongestion exercise combined with uh uh sanitation or cleaning the place so it's decongestion and cleanup if you google you notice that on the issue of e-waste this area has been declared as the west in fact number one in africa we need to place ghana on the international map looking good when it comes to e-waste and so this place is being decongested today and the good news is that alternative arrangements are already in place for them there is a recycled plant just around the back of the which is completed so we are saying that if you're dealing in spare parts that's a recycling plan go closer to it when you get your stuff give it to them there's a second phase of the recycling plan coming up at atomic area that is on its way so that's what we are doing today just to make sure that indeed we revive the last confidence in people businesses in accra and then bring back the discipline that is being lost what happens to this land after it is clear well there are plans for it in fact by next week we will rent a fence wall here all the way high and then packs the gardens and will come in there and begin to turn the place into greenery so by six times months time when we remove it you'll see how the place will look like as humans we sometimes tend to be recalcitrant what happens to people or persons who would want to return back to the species will be here for a period and well if you choose to come here you have a conversation with you so the exercise is a twin exercise the decongestant or demolition as well as a clean up exercise now the cleanup exercise has been spearheaded by zoom lion ghana limited let's hear from them the idea is not to demolish but it is to make the place free for everybody to have this work done and we have so many people settling around places that they don't have to set and they are creating the waste so if we want to make a crowd work if you want to make a crowd clean we have to make sure that we decongest the place the place becomes free at the graphic road next to the odor river is a major hub for scrap dealers in accra fortunately unfortunately this is one of the areas earmarked for demolition or for eviction by the tax force we're here and there have been some concerns by the affected scrap dealers we have chairman of the scrap dealers association here joining us uh to to help us understand that their plight as it is hello and welcome to the city newsroom announcements we say about foreign let's not speak to kenneth duncan hagan who has the security team uh on this particular assignment to pick up uh generally first of all his observations of the exercise so far so far so good but i saw something to be cleared because we are back about 200 meters so i'm scrapping a heap of debris that you have to clear we are waiting for an excavator barcode one weekly i will say that we have achieved about 90 success were there any challenges any difficulties at all carrying out your there's this exercise today oh so far we undisputed some uh some challenges but nothing happened maybe we anticipated so much so we brought arm personnel and you know that word out without of any possible challenge so far so good and everything is going on well this place is not for me alone for you and i maintaining environmental sanitation is good for your health and my health so all of us will join to make sure that we maintain a certain environment and then we should be law abiding we shouldn't take law into our hands you should restore the law and then live in conformity with our environment you

Channel: CitiTube

Views: 70,999

Keywords: CitiTube, CitiTube Ghana, Citi TV, Citi TV Ghana, Citi TV Live, Ghana, Ghana News, making accra work again, henry quartey, citi newsroom, graphic road, decongesting accra, making accra the cleanest city in africa

Id: BjnYKt3QJ6c

Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Thu May 20 2021