Some food vendors have defied the Ghana Health Service (GHS) ban on the sale of food on the streets.
The vendors and their customers who spoke to Citi News dispelled talks that they are the cause of the cholera outbreak that health workers are battling to deal with.
The cholera outbreak has so far claimed over 80 lives while more 10,000 cases have been recorded.
The Accra Metropolitan Assembly has been embarking on clean-up exercises to rid the city of filth.
The government is also in talks with the World Health Organization (WHO) to release oral vaccines to stem the spread of the disease and save more lives.
The new directive by the GHS is another desperate measure instituted to prevent more people from getting infected.
Some angry food vendors who spoke to Citi News rather blamed the AMA Chief Executive, Alfred Oko Vanderpuije.
A food vendor who sells cooked noodles popularly called “indomie,” Mabel, told Citi News, “I have been selling food for years on the streets of Adabraka so tell Vanderpuije to fix our environmental problems because banning us from selling on streets will not stop the cholera outbreak.”
“This new directive will not help in any way. Government should pay the officials of the AMA well for them to work hard to keep the city clean because our gutters are choked,” she fumed.
Mabel added that she will not stop selling on the streets “because it is not our fault. It is Vanderpuije’s fault that there is a cholera outbreak. So go and tell him that we will not stop selling on the streets.”
Almost all the vendors Citi News spotted on the streets of Adabraka were selling in the open with no sheds or sieves covering the food on display, but they insist they cannot be blamed for the cholera outbreak.
Another vendor said: “This cholera outbreak cannot be blamed on us. If you go to the Odorna market, a huge heap of refuse is sitting close to the market where the women sell their food produce. The Odorna gutter is choked with refuse.”
He recalled that the AMA boss once visited the area to inspect the licenses they were issued by the Assembly to enable them sell their food.
“So it is not as if we cook bad food to our customers. We ensure we keep our surroundings clean so that we don’t drive our customers away,” he said.
A follow up on Wednesday morning also showed that many of the vendors have set up, ready to sell, barely 24 hours after the directive.
In a related development, the Executive Director of the Consumer Protection Agency, Kofi Kapito has described as “too little too late” the directive from the GHS.
According to him, the ban will make no difference. He questioned how the ban will be enforced saying, “how is this feasible for it to be enforced? The so-called assembly, are they well equipped to be going all around Accra?”
Mr. Kapito blamed the government for allowing the unhygienic preparation and sale of food to the general by vendors, go out of hand.
