President Mahama inaugurates Aboabo Market Complex
President John Dramani Mahama on Wednesday inaugurated the redesigned Aboabo Market Complex and a bus terminal in Tamale as part of his accounting to the people tour to the Northern Region.
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The GH¢5,585,794 market complex and lorry park project was jointly funded by the French government under its Overseas Development Agency (AFD) and the Government of Ghana (GOG).
The new market complex comprises 72 lockable stores, while the paved lorry park has been designed for heavy duty trucks, buses and saloon cars.
The Aboabo Market is one of the oldest in the Tamale metropolis and it has been redesigned to enhance trading and commercial activities in the regional capital.
The project was implemented by the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA), under the Ghana Urban Management Pilot Project (GUMPP).
Rousing Welcome
The President, who arrived in the metropolis around 6.20 p.m., after cutting the sod for the construction of an office complex for the West Mamprusi District Education Directorate, received a rousing welcome from the enthusiastic crowd that had gathered along the Tamale-Bolgatanga highway to receive him.
The reception accorded the President to his home region brought commercial activities and traffic to a standstill, particularly in the business district, with some of the people riding and tooting the horns of their motorbikes.
President Mahama is in the Northern Region on the final leg of his ‘accounting to the people’ tour.
Inauguration of market
President Mahama told the people that apart from the government investing heavily in infrastructural projects to transform the lives of the people, it was also investing heavily to improve the livelihoods of the people and economic activities, citing the redesigned Aboabo Market as a project in that endeavour.
He mentioned some of the projects the government was undertaking to promote trade and commerce in the Tamale metropolis and the Northern Region as the upgrading of the Tamale Central Market, the Aboabo Sheanut Market, which is still under construction, and a new market at Kakpayili, a suburb of the metropolis.
Others are a bus terminal and shopping mall at Datoyili, also in the Tamale Metropolis, which is nearing completion, and the upgrading of other markets, all aimed at facilitating increased economic activities in the metropolis.
The Aboabo Sheanut Market was started by the Acheampong regime but was later abandoned.
President Mahama said the reconstruction of the market would provide an additional 180 stores and warehouses.
Tamale Airport
The President also announced that the upgrading of the Tamale Airport into an international one was nearing completion and that the runway and the lighting system on the runway had been completed.
That, he said, would enable flights to take off and land at night and during bad weather, often experienced in the region during the Harmattan.
According to him, the government was in talks with the Ghana Airports Company and the Ghana Hajj Board to airlift Muslims from the three Northern Regions who would want to perform the Hajj this year from the Tamale Airport to Jedda, Saudi Arabia.
President Mahama expressed appreciation to the chiefs and people of Tamale for the rousing welcome and their support and cooperation for his government that had enabled it to deliver on its mandate to the people.
He described his visit as a homecoming and added that since his government took office, it had ensured the equitable distribution of projects across the country.
He had earlier addressed a durbar of the chiefs and people of the Wungu Traditional Area at Walewale and cut the sod for the commencement of work on an office complex for the Ghana Education Service (GES) District office at Walewale.
He said the government, as part of efforts to eradicate schools under trees, had constructed 1,600 basic schools across the country.
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“The government is doing its best to eradicate schools under trees. We will not say that we have been able to eradicate the problem completely, but we will gradually get there to make schools under trees a thing of the past by the end of my second term in 2021,” he said.
Pledge
In response to an appeal by the Paramount Chief of Walewale, Wuugu-Naba Alhaji Saaka Sulemana, for the establishment of a nursing and midwifery training school in the area, President Mahama said he would ask the Ministry of Health to do feasibility for that purpose.
He also promised that the government would ensure the construction of a bridge over the Mamkragu River to link the overseas communities in the Wungu Traditional Area.