It was confusion at both entrances of the Takoradi Market Circle when traders queued up in their numbers and were scrambling for a certified ‘card’ to enable them enter the place.
In the process of queuing, they did not only abuse the social distancing protocol, but exposed themselves to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) considering the number of traders who trooped to the market to secure their cards.
As a way of containing the spread of the virus, the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA), last week Thursday, closed down the market, including other satellite markets in the Metropolis.
The market was closed down partially for a period of one week.
But yesterday, the STMA open the floodgates for the market women to openly abuse the social distancing protocol when it said it was issuing rotational cards for the traders before they could enter the market.
This resulted in the market women converging in large numbers at both entrances of the Takoradi Market Circle in anticipation of securing their cards.
The story at the Jubilee Park Market was not different, as hawkers and traders also queued up in their numbers scrambling to secure their cards.
The Public Relations Officer of the STMA, John Laste, told this reporter that the exercise was to allow the traders secure cards before they could enter the market.
Laste, who expressed shock at the large number of traders besieging the market, said the STMA had communicated to the leadership of the market to rather secure the rotational cards on behalf of their members.
For instance, he said, leaders of tomato sellers were to collect the cards on behalf of their colleague traders.
Considering the arrangements made for the collection of the rotational cards, Laste was surprised the exercise saw a large crowd of traders scrambling for the cards.
He said, per the directive issued by the STMA, the Assembly had allotted times for each category of leaders of the market women to appear before the office of the Market Manager to pick their cards on behalf of their members.
Regrettably, this was not followed.
The Western File saw and captured market women queuing up in their numbers abusing the social distancing protocol scrambling to secure their rotational cards.
The post STMA opens floodgates for market women to abuse social distancing protocol appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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