Kantamanto Incident: Police Must Approach With A Human Face - Kwesi Pratt

Editor of the Insight newspaper has urged the Ghana Police Service to discharge their duties as far as traders at the Kantamanto market are concerned with a human face and not with aggression. According to him, the traders are in shock; yet to recover from the trauma of losing their properties to fire; hence the need to be treated with care. The managing Editor was speaking to the fire outbreak that ensued at the Kantamanto market, destroying properties worth billions and displacing persons who used the market as residence. Subsequently, due to the damage caused the traders were asked by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) not to rebuild their structures but rather relocate to other designated markets. However, the traders have refused and are erecting structures to start business. The police who according to them wants to keep the �crime scene� intact for investigations to be conducted went to the burnt market on Monday to protect the area. However, the traders refused leading to a clash and the use of tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them (traders). Contributing to panel discussion on �Kokrokoo� with host Kwami Sefa-Kayi, Kwesi Pratt said even though the police have the right to maintain law and order, �they should approach it with a human face�. He alluded to the fact that the traders, who think the market will be taken away from them if relocated, are probably speaking based on previous experience, and so they should rather be assured and not forced. He is also of the view that most of the people causing the mayhem at Kantamanto especially assaulting the police are not traders but some miscreants who are taking advantage of the situation. �It is the duty of the police to protect every crime scene and ensure that such structures are not erected again. However, in discharging those duties, they should have at the back of their mind that the people they are dealing with are in sorrow, have lost properties worth billions and if sympathy is not shown towards them, the situation will become worse,� he said. Meanwhile, he has also asked the traders to adhere to the directive of the AMA so that government will be able to reconstruct the market. He stated that the �traders are doing a tremendous job we have to acknowledge and recognize, but the type of markets we have in our country is embarrassing�; hence the need for restructuring. �The market needs to be reconstructed at all cost because it is not just about the traders; but concerns the entire nation. It is true the traders were affected and are in big loss but the issue is bigger than the traders. If we allow them to put up their own structures the issues which probably led to the fire outbreak will still be there; We need to change every market structure in the country, not only the Kantamanto market. This is the time to rehabilitate all markets from Accra to anywhere there is a market. I think it is a priority,� he asserted.