The roofing of the controversial Sekondi market has finally been fixed by the Member of Parliament and Deputy Minister for Energy, Andrew Egyapa Mercer.
This was after several complaints by the traders on the dilapidated nature of the market which was affecting their business.
It would be recalled the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Candidate for Sekondi, Lawyer Nyameke Blay Armah, was blocked by authorities of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly after he attempted to fix the roofing.
The Assembly indicated at the time that a budget allocation has been made for a new market to be constructed and that it would not be prudent for the NDC PC to fix the roofing.
Speaking in an interview with Nhyiraba Paa Kwesi Simpson, the host of Connect FM’s Omanbapa morning show, lawyer Andrew Egyapa Mercer indicated that the roofing was fixed with his social investment fund.
“The traders will attest to the fact that the roofing was bad in the past and I used my resources to fix it when the NDC PC was nowhere to be found,” he said.
“When it came to my attention again that the roofing was in a bad state, I spoke to the MCE and he promised to mobilize resources to fix it since they take tolls from the traders but it turned out they do not have the resources to fix it. So I had to use my social investment fund to fix the roofing,” he added.
According to him, the reconstruction of the Market is in the pipeline and that forms part of the reason why the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly could not make any budget allocations to fix the roofing.
“Item number 33 on the approved list of Public Investment Projects in 2022 to 2024 for the medium term captures the Sekondi Market. So the expectation was that the Sekondi market would be re-constructed within the period making it difficult for the metro Assembly not to spend any money on it.
“But we all know the financial situation of this country and so not a single public investment project was funded in the whole of Ghana in 2023. So now that the economy has picked up we are going to see in 2024 if the government will have the capacity to fund public investment projects then we will work on it,” he indicated.
By Eric Nana Gyetuah|Connect FM|3news.com|Ghana