Kaneshie Market to undergo renovation (24/1/09)

The Kaneshie Market Complex is to be transformed with the construction of a $20 million structure to help decongest the crowded market.
The project, which is being funded by shareholders of the market and some benevolent individuals, is expected to commence by the end of the year.
The Managing Director of the market, Mr Edmund Kofi Duffour Addae, told the Daily Graphic in an interview in Accra that the new structure would consist of a car park, shops, offices, conference rooms and cinema halls among others.
The Kaneshie market is noted to be one of the busiest and most congested markets in the country.
The market has a large car park beside its structure, which has completely been taken over by commercial vehicles that ply many parts of the country.
Around the market building itself are hundreds of petty traders and hawkers who do brisk business wherever they find convenient.
The congested nature of the area around the market, one of the first planned markets in Accra, has forced many of the commercial drivers to ply their business on the three-lane dual carriageway that leads to the Mallam Junction, a situation that creates unbearable and constant traffic around the area.
Hawkers who have no access to the small spaces around the market building have also found the shoulders of the street in front the market and the pavements a much more convenient place to attract people to their wares.
When asked about what the market authorities would do to all the commercial drivers and hawkers around the market, Mr Duffuor said the management of the market would hold discussions with the city authorities to relocate them.
Mr Duffour said as part of plans for this year, the management intended to improve on the environmental conditions of the market by providing traders with more improved toilet and bathroom facilities.
He noted that the number of toilet and bathroom facilities in the market were insufficient hence the need to add up to the existing ones.
Mr Duffour said they would be organising health talks, financial management programmes and education on the need for insurance for the traders before the end of the year.
On the indiscriminate dumping of refuse in and around the market, he said the management was in talks with Zoomlion Ghana Limited, one of the leading waste management companies in the country, to take care of the waste situation.