Bring Asesewa market to past glory — YOWE

Youth and Women Empowerment (YOWE), a non-governmental organisation, has called on the Upper Manya Krobo District Assembly to revamp the Asesewa Market to its past glory.

The Chief Executive Officer of YOWE, Emmanuel Nuertey Siakwa, who made the call, said the image of the Asesewa Market which used to be a leading market in the country since it was established in 1936 was sinking and appealed to all stakeholders to ensure they bring the market back to its former glory.

Giving his closing remarks at the end of a clean-up exercise at the Asesewa Market on Tuesday, he said “The Asesewa Market is a well-known and well-recognised market throughout the country and the conditions that used to prevail in the past including the facilities have gone down.

The state of the market is not the best and I challenge officials, especially those from the assembly to get involved and ensure that the market gets back its past glory”, Mr Siakwa stated.

He also called on the market women and all other stakeholders in the district, particularly the district assembly, to bring the Asesewa Market to its past glory.

The market clean-up exercise, which was in collaboration with the Upper Manya Krobo District Assembly, the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), the Asesewa Market Women Association (AMWA), the Zoom Lion Company and the other collaborators, was initiated by Action for Voice Influence and Inclusive Development (AVID) Project with sponsorship from STAR Ghana.

The AVID Project has three main components with emphasis on the economic empowerment of market women and how they should cater for the environmental conditions in the Asesewa Market and Agormanya Market in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality.

The project also empowers Persons With Disability (PWD) to manage their businesses well and lastly the project also gives support to small women farm holders to form cooperatives on their own.

As part of activities to attain and achieve the intended result of the project, YOWE facilitated a monthly clean-up exercise at the Asesewa and Agormanya markets which aimed to ensure that the two markets were always clean to befit their status as the leading markets in the Eastern Region and to the large extent the country.

Challenges

According to the YOWE Chief Executive Officer, the market women had agreed on monthly clean-up exercise of the market and he stressed the need for the assembly to support the market women to that effect, adding “by so doing the market women feel they are part of the assembly and they will willingly pay the market tolls which is the main revenue for the assembly’’.

The Asesewa Market Queenmother, Manye Felicia Mamley Tettey, also bemoaned the bad state of the market now.

The District Environmental Health Officer (DEHO) of the assembly, Julius Dzonyrah, said his department would continue to educate the general public regarding issues of sanitation in the market.

The Upper Manya Krobo District Engineer of the assembly, John Asamoah, said plans were far advanced to reorganise the market to befit its status as it used to be.