The Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Mr Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, has urged contractors working on projects at the Odawna and Mallam Markets to speed up work and hand over the projects by the end of July.
Mr Adjei-Mensah Korsah said this when he inspected ongoing market projects at the Odawna and Mallam Markets in Accra on Thursday.
The Minister expressed the determination of the ministry to complete the projects on time and hand them over to the market women.
“This work has toiled for about eight years and we are determined to finish and hand it over at the end of this month. That for me, is the understanding I have with my ministry and the assembly has been informed and we are going to work around it to ensure that we indeed finish and hand it over.
“We can all see that there remains a bit of work to be done in the areas where we have toured, we realised that there are touches to be done and then the walls surrounding the market are either nonexistent or one side looks very weak, it poses danger because they could fall as people crowd the place,” he said.
“We have seen that right in the space of the market somebody has encroached it and put up a building so I have agreed with the MCE that it needs to be pooled down for us to have the land. Some people who are also doing some business and preventing the contractor from erecting the walls, we ask that by the close of today, some measures are taken to get them out so we can finish,” he noted.
He assured the market women that the expansion of the Odaw River by the Works and Housing Ministry would fix the flooding challenges they face.
He said the Minister of Works and Housing was working to ensure drains around the Odar River were expanded to contain large volumes of water to eradicate the perennial flooding in the vicinity.
Grace Acheampong, ISD
