Trade Fair Centre needs urgent attention

Ghanaians have taste for quality things and the state has spent a fortune to build roads, schools, hospitals and offices across the country. The buildings and even roads add to the aesthetic appeal of our environment and the offices also add up to the good outlook of the skyline.

In all these efforts, the missing link has been our inability to develop a maintenance culture.

Unfortunately, the canker of the poor maintenance culture in the country seems not to be going away, almost 60 years after Ghana’s independence. We live in a country where governments are quick to spend millions of Ghana cedis of the taxpayer’s money on prestigious and strategic projects only to see them rot in the long run. In the end, they come back to find money, sometimes in geometric progression, to undertake massive renovation.

We can mention the Job 600 project at Parliament House, Peduase Lodge, Pwalugu Tomato Factory, the Komenda Sugar Factory, the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre and the Osu Castle as just a few of the state-owned assets that have suffered from a bad maintenance culture.

In the case of the Trade Fair Centre, just like the many other facilities, the present level of disrepair is unacceptable.

The centre, built over four decades ago as a magnificent edifice meant to host major local and international fairs, is now in ruins, a situation which makes it unattractive and unsafe to host any major fair or exhibition.

With the exception of pavilions A and B, as well as the Mobile Pavilion and the one housing the offices of the Ghana Trade Fair Company (GTFC), operators of the centre, the other facilities at the centre have been overtaken by weeds, making them    a good haven for reptiles.

During a visit to the centre last weekend and early this week, the Daily Graphic observed that the famous Round Pavilion, which used to attract many visitors during trade fairs, was in a bad shape.

The centre was meant to generate some funds to be able to take care of itself. For instance, the managers of the centre should have found the means to generate revenue to pay staff and set aside some to keep the centre in shape at all times.

It is against this background that the Daily Graphic finds it difficult to comprehend why the prized state asset has been left in ruins.

To us, all the chief executive officers of the centre who looked on for the facilities to deteriorate at the centre must be ashamed of their legacies.

We hope the present government will take up the challenge to find the resources to revive the centre and to restore it to its former glory.

We believe that at this time, when the government is pledging to make the growth of the private sector its main priority, the centre will be revived to allow local manufacturers to use the grounds to showcase their products and services to Ghanaians and the rest of the world.

 The huge investments in the Trade Fair Centre must not be allowed to go waste because when that happens, posterity will not forgive the present leadership of the country.

The time has come for us as a people to halt the decay in the public sector by turning things around, including our poor maintenance culture.