Market Women Hijack Bolga Market Project

Work on a market for the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly is yet to commence despite the contract being awarded six years ago, as the contractor has no access to the site as which is occupied by traders.

The contract, awarded under the Jubilee Bond projects in October 2008 to Munisco Limited, was one of nine market projects in two municipalities and six districts, but the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly that owns of the project has failed to evacuate traders from the site to pave way for work to start.

According to news reports, Munisco is making compensatory demands of an unspecified amount from the Assembly because it failed to relocate the traders to make way for work to start, even though the firm received mobilisation of GH¢89,045 to start work.

Mr. Ibrahim Azumah, Engineer at the Architectural Engineering Services Limited (AESL) is quoted by Ghana News Agency as saying due to a change in government, the execution of these projects shifted from the Jubilee Projects to the Ministry of Finance.

According to him, though the rest of eight projects were at various stages of completion, the Bolgatanga one is still confronted with commencement problem because it is to be sited at an existing market.

Mr Azumah said the contract sum at the time of awarding the contract in 2008 was GH¢890,456, and that even though the sum was reviewed upward in 2012 to GH¢1,440,013 it could not take off.

He said the markets in the other six districts were being built on new sites but the Bolgatanga one was to be built on an existing one, and added that moving traders from the market to enable the contractor to start work has been difficult.