Traders from Ho Central Market led by Ms Rejoice Norvixoxo, the market queen, last Friday staged a demonstration in the township against the Municipal Assembly and its leadership.
The four-hour peaceful demonstration took demonstrators to the premises of the Regional Coordinating Council and the Municipal Assembly where they presented their petition.
Among their grievances were accusations against the Municipal Chief Executive, Divine Bossoon, for an unlawful detention of their market queen, intimidation, interference in the administrative set-up of their leadership, and lack of consensus building by stakeholders on issues affecting the common good of the market.
The crust of the matter according to them was that, the Assembly had formed a Market Management Committee whose actions were detrimental to the common good of the traders in the market.
According to them, the fragile relationship between the market queen and the Management Committee as to who had the capacity and legitimacy to run the market had led to many confrontations and arrest of the market queen on some occasions.
“We want to bring to your attention that we are not operating in the market by ourselves but were duly selected and appointed by Mamagah Akua-Dei, the Paramount Queen of Asogli State, the chiefs, queens, elders and the traditional authorities of the Asogli State which was witnessed by some members of the Assembly,” they contended.
They said the actions of the MCE were thus an insult to the traditional authorities, disrespecting their orders, thereby undermining their authority in Asogli State.
“These people were causing more harm by taking moneys from their favourites and infringing on the rights of others to enrich their pockets with huge tolls in the market,” the market leadership alleged.
They appealed to the Regional Coordinating Council to intervene to establish the role of the assembly and the market queen.
In a media briefing after the demonstration, Mr Busson, the Municipal Chief Executive, refuted the allegations levelled against him and his team.
He said upon assumption of office, the assembly noticed a lot of financial leakages from the market, and consequently put measures in place to stop the trend culminating in the formation of a management committee.
Mr Busson said since the formation of the committee, the internally generated funds from the market had substantially increased, adding that the market queen was bitter and peeved because, she was no longer getting the monies which were illegally collected by her.
FROM LAWRENCE MARKWEI, HO
