President John Mahama has promised to continue projects abandoned by his predecessors.
The President said this when he cut sod for work to re-commence on the abandoned Tamale supermarket as part of his two-day working visit to the Northern Region.
Construction of the Aboabo Supermarket started in 1978 but was abandoned for lack of funds.
When completed, it will consist of a two-storey block with 92 stores for cereal traders and a supermarket area with 120 shops.
He said the Aboabo Supermarket and three other markets in the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly such as the Lamashegu and Tamale central market are going to be used as a model market to be replicated across the country if successful.
‘’Tamale is a pilot to build model markets as you are aware recently we have had market fires in various market because the markets are not constructed properly. We are building markets in five location if it is successful we will spread it out across the country so that if there is a market any were in the country the municipal or metropolitan assembly will use it to build a model market for the people’’, the President said.
At Lahagu President Mahama inspected phase one of an ongoing100 unit’s affordable housing project initiated by the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly in partnership with the Tamale Community Co-operative Credit Union with funding from Water and Sanitation for Africa.
Under this project the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly and the community co-operation credit union of Tamale have provided land, with a pledge to supply access roads, electricity and market to the community.
The project when completed will be issued out to the active poor who are members of the local co-operative association at a price of GHC15, 000 with the donor paying for 20% of the price.
President Mahama lauded the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly for the initiative.
He said the project, if it becomes successful will also be replicated across District assemblies in the country.
He encouraged Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to consider entering in to private partnership with organizations in order to ease the challenges in undertaking developmental projects.
‘’The Ministry of local government will give you guidelines to enter public private partnership’’ President Mahama said.
Whiles in Tamale the President also visited Kotingli were he commissioned a rural electrification project for 22 farming communities in the Tamale south constituency under phase one of the Northern Regional Rural Electrification programme.
A total of 400 communities in the Northern Region will benefit from the first phase of the project, while another 400 communities will also be enrolled to the national grid during the second phase of the project to increase their access to electricity.
‘’Though the accessibility in Ghana is 76 percent, it is the highest in West Africa. Government will still pursue measures that would step up access to ensure the sustenance of small and medium scale enterprises’’.
