Mr Mahama Ayariga, the Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy, and Religious Affairs, says the government is exploring alternative financing strategies to complete the stalled Takoradi Market Circle Redevelopment Project.
This follows the cancellation of an outstanding loan amount initially provided through an export credit from Deutsche Bank S.p.A., Italy, with support from SACE, an Italian agency, which had stalled progress of work on the project.
Mr Ayariga said this when he toured the site to ascertain progress of work done so far on the stalled project.
According to him, he had been tasked by the Finance Minister to come up with an alternative financing framework that would ensure the completion of the project.
He said: “The project is far advanced and it is not fair to our market women and the traders that we will construct an edifice up to this extent and not complete it, so we just need to organise ourselves and resolve the financing issues.”
The Local Government Minister said part of the new financing mechanism was to pre-rent out the spaces and mobilise the funds needed to complete the entire project.
Mr Ayariga said: “We have realised that if we actually rent out the spaces, we should be able to use the rental amount to complete the project because it is far advanced and the amount of money needed to complete is not that much.
“So, we are in discussion with the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly, the Ministry, and the contractors, where we would get back to the Ministry of Finance and conclude on how to collect the money from those who would want the spaces in the market and use it to complete it and hand over to them.”
He noted that as part of the modalities, they would partner with banks to collect the money to ensure fairness in the allocation of the stores, saying, “We don’t want to get involved with the collection, so we will farm out this and the allocation to the banks to avoid any partisan consideration or other interference.”
Mr Ayariga gave the assurance that the government was working assiduously to bring the contractors back on site to resume work and complete the Takoradi Market Circle Redevelopment Project.
“I want to assure the people of Sekondi-Takoradi and the Western Region in general that we will complete the project, because we are negotiating with the contractors and hope that they can finish it within a year. That is our target,” he added.
