MODERN MARKET FOR ELUBO (PAGE 42, JUNE 17, 2010)

THE Jomoro District Assembly in the Western Region is constructing a modern market at Elubo to befit the status of the border town as a fast-growing international trading and commercial destination.
It is also the vision and strategy of the district assembly to improve the image of the town and its land management.
The new market comprises stores and stalls, a day care centre, cold stores, butchers’ shed, a canteen, administrative office, conference hall, waiting rooms, sanitary facilities, a lorry park, as well as a loading and off-loading bays.
The old market is being relocated to a more convenient place on a 22.7 acre land at Pillar Three on the Elubo-Enchi road.
Speaking at a sod-cutting ceremony to commence the project, the Jomoro District Chief Executive, Mr Nyianyi, said the assembly’s intervention was to provide basic and acceptable facilities in the new location to alleviate problems currently facing traders who were using unauthorised areas in the town.
He stated that Elubo had become a major border town since the 1980s when the construction of the Agona Nkwanta-Elubo portion of the Trans-African Highway was completed.
The highway, Mr Kablan said, improved the road access and made the town one of the fastest growing in the country and a gateway, providing the first and last impressions for visitors to and from Cote d’lvoire.
“Indeed, the new status of Elubo has led to what could be described as a population explosion, over-generating socio-economic and commercial activities,” he added.
Mr Kablan said some of those things had brought in their wake haphazard land use and development, following the business boom which was attracting local and international patronage from traders as far as Togo, Niger, Nigeria and Cote d’lvoire.
“This has resulted in a spillover of commercial activities to the security zone of the border town, causing human and vehicular traffic congestion with dire consequences for security and the country’s image”, he said.
The assembly member for Elubo, Mr Joseph Allah Arthur, commended the assembly for its foresight and appealed to the government to rehabilitate the road from Pillar Three to Jema since most of the farm produce came from that area.
The Omanhene of the Western Nzema Traditional Area and President of the Nzema Maanle Council, Awulae Annor Adjaye, called for sanity to prevail at the border of Elubo following the recent revelations of security lapses which resulted in the smuggling of cocoa in to a neighbouring country.
He also advocated a clampdown on commercial sex trade which was on the increase at Elubo.