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Call it Kantamanto politics and your description of the intrigues being played out by the Chief Executive Officer of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and others in the matter of the one-time sprawling market in Accra, the capital, would be dead right. The actions and remarks of the head of the AMA, soon after the suspicious blaze reduced the market to ashes, smacked of arson. Indeed, many think that was the case, given the alacrity with which the gentleman deployed a grader to the site. That that happened even before the so-called investigators set foot on the location worsens the puzzle and fuels probing questions about whether the political establishment can be so callous as to lose the humaneness required when dealing with citizens� source of daily bread. The sense of a budgetary allocation waiting for the project, soon after the fire, although doubtful, added to the puzzle about the Kantamanto Market affair. Equally worrying is the politico-ethnocentric undertones being alluded to the whole project. We might not support this perception but suffice it to state that it is held by most of the victims, hundreds if not thousands of their dependents including the millions of politically active Ghanaians. The remarks of the victims in their state of hopelessness are not favourable to national development and regrettably deepen the political chasm that already exists in the country. Indeed, some Accra residents have expressed worry about how the indirect employment the market provided them has suddenly evaporated into thin air. Those who sell local dishes to the hundreds of traders and buyers at the place and others who buy for the purposes of retailing elsewhere in town or even outside Accra have been rendered unemployed by the reckless action of whoever was behind the arson, if that was the case. Most importantly, the link that market had with the trade movement of money to and fro, and for that matter the economy of Accra and Ghana, appears to be lost to those handling the matter this moment. Sooner than later, the far-reaching impact and effects would be felt by us all, irrespective of our partisan leanings. We would have wished that we don�t fall victim to that kind of hardship that imposes pain on us. It is a pity if those in government are oblivious to the economic implications of what befell the Kantamanto Market, as it appears to be the case. Isolating the victims from the development of the market is to regard them as non-partners in a project in which they have a stake. Having entered into a legal agreement to occupy the place on a 50-year-lease period with the Ghana Railway Corporation, the victims have certainly been given a raw deal and can test the law if they so wish in a country which prides herself in upholding the rule of law. The whole idea of strategic investment, which the authorities have already started touting about, smacks of the involvement of foreign businessmen, something which distances the project further away from the victims. Let the victims arrange bank credits themselves with government facilitation, if need be, for the reconstruction efforts and not some Shylock-minded strategic investors from another hemisphere. The Vanderpuye module is not what development is about and we allow it at the peril of enhancing local entrepreneurship. Can�t we appreciate this reality fellow Ghanaians, especially those of you at the helm of affairs? It�s such a pity.