RESIDENTS of Victory Cinema area, a suburb of Tamale, have made an urgent appeal to the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TAMA) to renovate the Aboabo Market and provide the necessary basic facilities, including public toilets, for the area.
They said anytime it rained, traders at the market found it inconvenient to trade as a result of the muddy nature of the area.
The residents made the call during an interaction with the Daily Graphic.
According to them, the market needed to be provided with security lights and relocated, if need be, to ease the congestion there.
Residents of the area, who are predominantly traders, blacksmiths, key cutters, carpenters and steel benders, stressed the need for the TAMA to help provide street lights for the area.
When contacted, the Assembly Member for the area, Alhaji Haruna Yasaba, acknowledged the challenges faced by traders at the Aboabo Market and stated that its renovation was very critical to enhancing the revenue mobilisation efforts of the assembly.
He expressed regret that though there were about 1,700 stores at the market, because of its deteriorating nature traders were reluctant to pay their taxes to revenue officers.
Alhaji Yasaba intimated that there was the need to provide proper drains for the market.
He noted that the youth in the area lacked jobs, while others had no money to continue with their education.
Officials at the Revenue Office of the Aboabo Market admitted that revenue generation in the area was poor, particularly during the rainy season, as most traders and commercial drivers refused to pay their taxes.
“We need to put tiles on the ground to prevent the place from becoming muddy whenever it rains. Some truck drivers come from nearby villages and dump foodstuffs at the market without paying anything to the revenue officers,” they lamented.
The Metropolitan Chief Executive, Alhaji Abdulai Haruna Friday, however, indicated that the TAMA was making strenuous efforts to complete the Aboabo Supermarket project started many years ago.
He said discussions were underway with a Chinese company, which had agreed to redesign the entire structure for work to start.
No comments:
Post a Comment