The Chairman of Enugu North Local Government Area of Enugu State, Hon. Emeka Onunze, has denied a story that the Akwatta section of Ogbete Main Market, Enugu, has been sold.
It has been trending on social media that that section of the market has been sold to a transportation company, Peace Mass Transit Limited.
The Chairman, in a statement, described the media reports as ‘false, misleading, baseless, and mischievous’.
He described it as ‘a calculated but failed attempt to undermine our genuine efforts to upgrade the condition of the market for the health and wellbeing of our people’.
Hon. Onunze, who disclosed that his office is constitutionally saddled with the responsibility of overseeing the affairs of the market, maintained that the Council has no intention of selling the market.
He explained; “we have only temporarily relocated the traders of the Tomato market in Akwatta to Garki Market, Enugu.
“This will enable the Council rebuild the section of the Ogbete Main Market to an acceptable standard, before they return to the market to continue their business transactions”, he said.
“This would allow for the administrative process for the reconstruction of the Akwatta Market which is now ongoing.
“We wish to reiterate that the project is very dear to us and that is why it is receiving such urgent attention”.
Onunze reiterated that the government did not sell Akwatta Market to anybody or company as is mischievously being peddled.
Rather he stressed that the Council, is very much conscious of the reality of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
He remarked that in order to enthrone basic standard hygiene in the market, on March 24, 2020, it shut down the Tomato section of the market.
He said that the entire market was only closed thereafter.
