More than 100 structures belonging to Tanokrom-Kokompe artisans in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis were pulled down on Friday morning.

The demolition exercise which started around 0530 hours was jointly undertaken by police and military taskforce to pave way for the construction of a shopping mall on the 22-acre land.

Some angry artisans affected by the exercise hailed insults at the security taskforce and attempted to attack them but they faced strong resistance because the taskforce was armed to the teeth with crowd control gear.

Some of the artisans told the Ghana News Agency on Friday that the city authorities did not give them prior notice and accused the mayor of Sekondi-Takoradi of not showing concern to their welfare.

Peter Marfo, an artisan, said he had a wife and five children and that the exercise would have adverse effect on their livelihoods.

The Mayor of the twin-city, Captain Anthony Cudjoe (rtd) last week told the GNA that the artisans had been given enough time to vacate the place.

He said a private investor had purchased a-58-acre land at Mampong-Kansaweredo for their operations and that the assembly and the investors had exhausted all avenues to impress upon the artisans to vacate the site.

Capt. Cudjoe said they had provided water tanks to provide water to the artisans while

electricity and toilet facilities had been provided at the new site and that when the artisans relocate to the place the rest of the facilities would be provided in due course.

The Mayor stated that the twin-city was choked therefore there was the need for a central location for artisans to operate so that all broken down vehicles could be sent there to ensure free flow of traffic in the metropolis.

The Chairman of the Tanokrom-Kokompe Garages Association, Mr. Kingsford Eshun, told the GNA that the new site at Mampong-kansanweredo lacked certain amenities, including bad road network, poor drainage system, non-availability of market, fire station, police post and other infrastructural facilities.

Mr. Peter Obosu, who is the liaison officer for the Western Development Consortium, the
South African investors, said the company had spent GHc1.5 million on securing the land for the artisans.

More than 2,500 artisans were affected by the demolition exercise.

GNA