Makola Fire: SSNIT put up a ghetto as a market

The Director of Communication of the Ghana Union of Traders Association, GUTA, Joseph Tetteh-Pardi has thrown heavy punches at SSNIT following the fire that razed down several shops at the Makola Market last Saturday.

Speaking after visiting the site on Monday, Mr Tetteh-Pardi said most of the markets in the country are custom-made, built by the traders themselves. He apart from the Kaneshie Market and few others which were put up by the government, the majority of markets are self-built by traders.

However, the Makola Market which he said belong to SSNIT, he expected that it would have been a well structured market unlike the others. But per his assessment, the Makola Market looks more like a ghetto than a market. He praised the Ghana National Fire Services for their ability to douse the fire despite there not being spaces for movement.

Mr Tetteh-Pardi appealed to the government to come to aid of the people who lost their shops to the fire. At least 200 shops were affected by the fire which started on Saturday, October 21, 2023 and took the fire services about 10 hours and nine fire tenders to put out.

“As GUTA we are going to support our members but we expect the government to come to the aid of these business communities as a matter of urgency because they have lost everything.

“We will be meeting those who own the facility, we will also be meeting the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and see the way forward. Most of our markets our custom-made markets, which are built by the people themselves. We only have a few markets that have been put up by the authorities like the Kaneshie Market is well-organized.

“This [Makorla market] was put up by SSNIT so it is not part of the custom-made markets, this is [supposed to be] a well-structured market but we can’t say that, it is like a ghetto, and for SSNIT to put up such a structure, it is unfortunate, we don’t know what informed them to put up such a structure.”

Also, Mr Tetteh-Pardi called on the owners of the market to relocate the affected traders so that they can continue with their business.

“I was even surprised that the fire service was able to come here to put the fire off because there is no space. We expect SSNIT to, as a matter of urgency, relocate these people to engage in their trade and we want the government to support them to engage in their trade.”