Two Kumasi markets shut down for violating health protocols

Two satellite markets within the Greater Kumasi jurisdiction have been closed down for gross violation of health protocols instituted by the government to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease.

They include the Dr. Mensah and Suame satellite markets, which were all closed on Wednesday, April 01, on the orders of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly and Suame Municipal Assembly, respectively.

The affected facilities, which served as food retail distribution centers, had seen an upsurge in trading activities, following the partial lockdown of Greater Kumasi and Greater Accra metropolitan areas since Monday, March 30.

“We are forced to shut down the markets, because the market queens and traders have failed consistently to comply with the directive on social distancing,” Mr. Osei Assibey-Antwi, the Mayor of Kumasi, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Kumasi.

The situation where lots of people massed up within a particular locality, he said, posed a serious health hazard under the present circumstances due to the highly infectious nature of the novel coronavirus.

A visit by the GNA to those facilities saw security personnel cordoning off the affected markets in order to ward off recalcitrant traders.

Meanwhile, Dr. John Osei Bobie-Boahin, the Suame Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), in an interview, has called on the public to avoid panic buying of foodstuff at the markets.

“We are in hard times, but the country has enough food stock to feed the population,” he said, and advised the citizenry to shun overcrowding in the markets since that was a dangerous thing to do in the wake of the pandemic.

source: GNA