Traders in Mamponteng, a busy market town in the Kwabre East Municipality of the Ashanti Region, took to the streets on Tuesday wearing their frustration in the most literal way possible: dressed in black and red, they marched to demand action on a market project that has been stalled since 2012, while high-tension power lines collapse around their stalls and their livelihoods quietly erode.
The Jubilee Market contract was awarded to Messrs. High A Limited in 2012 at a cost of GH¢8.8 million, under the supervision of ABP Consult Limited. The original design called for a three-storey administration block, four two-storey buildings with 197 lockable shops, two banks, 188 market stalls, a supermarket with warehouses, toll booths, and a daycare centre. In February 2026, traders are still waiting. The facility that was supposed to house them instead houses the homeless. Parts of it have been converted into a maize farm.
In the meantime, vendors have been trading under live high-tension electricity cables, the direct consequence of being evacuated from the old market site to make way for construction that never finished. The cables have collapsed at least three times. The most recent incident destroyed a colleague’s shop and goods in a fire. Traders told NewsGhana that when storm clouds gather over the town, they do not wait to see if the wires will hold. They run.
The Chief of Mamponteng, Barima Saasi Ayeboafo II, has described trading under an electricity pylon as capable of triggering “a disaster of a national scale if not urgently addressed.” The Krontihene of the Mamponteng Traditional Council, Nana Owusu Ansah, echoed that language on Tuesday, calling the situation a disaster waiting to happen and backing the traders’ demand for government to act without further delay.
Their ask is modest given the circumstances. Rather than demanding full government-funded completion immediately, the traders are asking for permission to enter the abandoned structure, mobilise their own resources, and finish it themselves. “If government cannot complete the market, we should be allowed to mobilise resources and finish it ourselves,” one trader said during the demonstration. Another put the emotional weight of the situation plainly: “We feel forgotten. Government officials have been notified of our situation, but it appears they have no interest in getting this market operational.”
This is not a new grievance and it is not a new promise. Vice President Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang visited the project site in September 2025 and pledged government would mobilise resources, including District Assemblies Common Fund allocations, to complete the market without further delay. President John Mahama, during his post-election Thank You Tour of the Ashanti Region, also listed the Mamponteng market among projects that would be completed under his Big Push Agenda. Neither pledge has yet translated into resumed construction.
Once completed, the Jubilee Market is expected to create over 1,000 jobs for residents of Mamponteng and the Kwabre East Municipality. For now, customers are choosing other markets. Sales are falling. Vendors who have traded in the town for years are absorbing losses they cannot afford, on a patch of ground they never chose, beneath wires that have already caught fire.
There was no response from government officials at the time of publication.
