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The Mayor of Accra, Michael Kpakpo Allotey, has announced the revival of the city’s decongestion initiative, “Operation Don’t Cross the Red Line,” as part of a renewed effort to tackle growing congestion in the Central Business District.
He made this assertion following a city-wide clean-up and decongestion exercise. The Mayor disclosed that a hands-on approach, including active collaboration with market women and traders involved in the area’s economic activities, will help make Accra the cleanest city in the country.
“I promise one thing, I’m going to work with a market woman. today during the decongestion exercise, the market women understood that we have to fix this. It’s a problem that most of the time the Mayors don’t deal with the market women directly but this time I’m dealing with them and they know the problem because they are in there and they know the problem and they know how to go about them.” He stated
According to him, the market traders themselves requested structured leadership within their ranks to help enforce the red line boundary, a demarcation meant to prevent the spilling over of trading activity onto main roads and pedestrian pathways. The red line concept was first introduced under former Mayor Alfred Okoe Vanderpuye.
Michael Kpakpo Allotey further disclosed that he has deployed over 1,000 personnel to patrol and manage the red line zones both day and night to ensure the effectiveness of the ‘Operation Don’t Cross the Red Line’ initiative.
“They have told me what they want me to do for them and that’s what I’m going to do for them. One, they want me to have leaders from their camp, maybe I’ll pick four five of them to be their leaders, so I’m going to have a red line, which former Mayor Alfred Okoe Vanderpuye did I’m going to have a similar red line tomorrow, so they are going to stay back the line and the leaders will control them.
“It’s not something that’s another nine-day wonder thing, but it’s something that has come to stay, and I want it to stay because it’s something I want to do. If I’m no more the Mayor, that’s one other thing that I want to leave behind. that when the mayor said he will clear the road, he made sure he left the road clear.
“We need men to guide the red line but the only thing we did at that time was we just picked the people from the market women and the market men to guide the red line but this time, I’m bringing over 1,000 boys to run day and night.” He disclosed.
He explained that the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) will also rolling out 24-hour services to complement the initiative which includes continuous ticketing, refuse collection, and enforcement by a dedicated task force
“AMA is going to start 24-hour ticketing, clearing refuse, putting a task force in place, etc. Everything will be on 24 hours. We’re going to work to make sure the city stays alive until morning.” He said
Source: Elvisanokyenews.net
