A View of the market
BUT FOR the change of government in 2016, the Sunyani Municipal Assembly in the Brong-Ahafo Region would have given all contracts to family and friends under President John Dramani Mahama’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime.
It is turning out that the assembly, under then Municipal Chief Executive, the late Kwasi Oppong Ababio, allocated shops to supposed investors for free without any proper documentation.
This came to light when the new Municipal Chief Executive, Ama Kumi Richardson, interacted with market women in the municipality.
She said the women complained to her that they were being sidelined in the allocation of stores in the Nana Bosoma Market, Sunyani, erected under   a Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) agreement, which was supposed to last for 50 years.
Madam Kumi Richardson said the assembly had discovered that most of the people who were allocated the shops during the NDC administration got them without any proper documentation.
According to the market women, before they were moved out of the place for the construction, they were promised allocation of the new stores after its completion, but others had started using the uncompleted stores without considering the old people.
The MCE said the assembly had not found any document that showed that it even entered into any BOT agreement.
She described the so-called 50 years’ contract as ‘outrageous’ and asked all contractors involved to submit their contract documents for study and renegotiation or consider the contract cancelled if they fail to comply with the directive.
The assembly’s current engineer, Kwame Frimpong, told DAILY GUIDE that the contracts were entered into without experts’ advice, saying it was done under the previous engineer who is no longer with the assembly.
FROM Daniel Y Dayee, Sunyani
danielyaodayee@yahoo.com