Traders sue KMA to restrain it from extending market project to Kejetia bus terminal
The Kumasi High Court will on July 10, 2015 hear a motion for an injunction to restrain the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) from going ahead with the reconstruction of the Kejetia Bus Terminal.
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The plaintiffs in the case, numbering more than 2,000 traders, are praying the court to declare that the deliberate extension of the Kumasi Central Market project to the Kejetia Bus Terminal was wrong, illegal and a calculated attempt to overreach them.
According to them, they had constructed permanent structures with the consent of the KMA which collects monthly shop fees and daily tolls from them by reason of their occupation of the stalls.
Mr Kwasi Afrifa, a lawyer with O and A Legal Consult, is representing the plaintiffs, made up of 402 members of the Kejetia Traders Association and 2,283 members of the Kejetia Petty Traders Association.
Statement of claim
In a statement of claim accompanying the motion, the plaintiffs urged the court to declare that the non-inclusion of the Kejetia Bus Terminal in the proposed rehabilitation project estimate sent to Cabinet was indicative that the Kejetia Bus Terminal was not part of the overall project.
It said any purported inclusion of the Kejetia Bus Terminal was “fraudulent and calculated to infringe the proprietary rights of the plaintiffs”.
The traders also want the court to affirm that the non-valuation of the plaintiffs’ permanent structures situated at the Kejetia Bus Terminal with a view to paying adequate and sufficient compensation for same before any demolition was unconstitutional, wrongful and infractions of the plaintiffs’ proprietary rights.
They also want the court to assert that the proposed relocation of the plaintiffs to a place and site totally unsuitable for the nature of their work and which was in any event incapable of catering for all of them was a ruse.
Reliefs
According to the statement, such deception was calculated to destroy the plaintiffs’ businesses and deprive them of their right to earn a living at the Kejetia Bus Terminal where they currently operate their businesses.
The plaintiffs are further praying the court for a declaration that having financed the buildings they occupy at the Kejetia Bus Terminal presently out of their own means, they were entitled to adequate, sufficient and prompt compensation before any attempt to relocate them therefrom.
The plaintiffs are also of a firm belief that the entire process of the purported construction of the Kejetia Bus Terminal was devoid of transparency and procedural integrity, against the backdrop that “no compensation has been offered the plaintiffs to enable them to reorganise their affairs as would be beneficial to them”.
The statement is also praying the court to compel the KMA to disclose and furnish the plaintiffs with contract documents covering the said rehabilitation of the Kumasi Central Market project for open verification of the extent and scope of the project.