Security forces enforced compliance in the Central Business District (CBD) of the Kumasi Metropolis, compelling defiant traders to join the national clean-up drive.
While some residents actively participated, many traders attempted to bypass the mandatory exercise, prompting security forces to intervene, especially at Alabar and Central Market.
The response to the sanitation drive was highly mixed across the metropolis’s major commercial hubs.
In Alabar and the Central Market areas, security personnel and Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) workers desilted choked gutters and cleared drainage systems under the watchful eye of onlookers.
Traders who attempted to sit out the exercise were actively pursued by security forces and ordered to assist with the efforts.
Meanwhile, business came to a standstill in Adum, at the Achemfuo Market, and around the Ellis Building, as major shops remained closed.
However, groups of traders loitered outside their storefronts waiting for the exercise to conclude, while several petty traders defied regulations by conducting business amidst the cleanup.
At the Kejetia Market, despite a temporary lockdown of the facility, crowds gathered at the main gates, eager to resume daily business.
In stark contrast to the hesitant onlookers, a section of civic-minded traders actively spearheaded the efforts, taking up brooms and cleaning tools to clear the streets.
Reflecting on the initiative, Kumasi Mayor, Hon Richard Ofori Agyemang Boadi, deemed this second phase of the national sanitation exercise a major success.
He noted that clearing the heavily clogged drainage systems serves as a vital, pragmatic solution to the city’s recurring flooding issues.
The Mayor issued a stern warning to the public, urging traders to act as civic watchdogs and hold their peers accountable during future exercises.
He stressed that the KMA will no longer tolerate environmental indiscipline, warning that immediate punitive action will be taken against anyone caught indiscriminately dumping waste in the city.
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