Mr. Elijah Adansi-Bonah, Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Obuasi in the Ashanti Region, has led the security services in a week-long decongestion exercise in Municipality.
The rationale behind the massive exercise, according to the MCE, was to rid Obuasi off unauthorised structures to help keep the city clean and keep traders away from selling on the streets in the Central Business District to improve the flow of traffic.
The exercise continued at Gauso, Mangoase, Bidieso and Kokoteasua where illegal permanent structures were also demolished.
The MCE disclosed that the Assembly was poised to ensure sanity in Obuasi by doing away with unauthorised structures and traders who defied the dangers involved in selling on the streets.
He stressed that the Assembly could not continue to allow people to take the law into their own hands and build unauthorized structures, let alone sell on the road.
He stated that the exercise was long overdue, hence, the resolve of the Assembly to act and allow the law to take its course, and expressed the hope that after the exercise Obuasi would regain its position as the cleanest city in Ghana.
He emphasised that prior to the exercise, notices were served on individuals who had put up illegal structures to remove them before the Assembly commenced the exercise, yet all those warnings were not heeded to.
Mr. Adansi-Bonah assured the people of Obuasi that the Assembly was committed to the growth of businesses, but stressed that it should not be at the expense of the safety of the people in the Municipality.
He reiterated that the Assembly would seek a court order to empower it to serve notices to those who had built their structures without obtaining permits.
The Municipal Works Engineer, David Agyei, bemoaned the level of lawlessness in the society where people chose to mount structures without applying for permits from the Assembly, contrary to the laid down procedures.
He said the practice, if not checked, would lead to impunity, and the consequences could be disastrous, and cautioned that those who still had their structures at unauthorised places to comply with the orders to maintain a safe and healthy environment.
