MDAs affected by Marine Drive project relocated to Ghana House
A team from the Ministry of Tourism Arts and Culture has visited the refurbished second floor of the Ghana House, where most Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s) affected by the Marine Drive project would be relocated.
Mr George Harrison Nana Kankam, Principal Tourism Officer, Ministry of Tourism, said the Marine Drive is a Tourism investment project, which the Ministry together with its collaborators and the agencies were working on to raise the image of Ghana’s tourism.
He said hitherto, the beaches were used for other things rather than developing it into attractive tourists’ sites, so the idea came up for them to develop the entire stretch from the Osu Castle area to the Baiden Powell area for tourist activities.
He said it was going to be a one stop shop, an integrated tourism destination that strives to develop accommodation to recreational activities, theatres, leisure activities and a lot more to feed the industry and develop and enhance the Ghanaian product.
Nana Kankam said there was a relocation plan for the occupants of the tourism enclave, and because there is a legislative instrument that compulsorily acquires the property “we have worked out compensational modalities”
“We are putting up a 17 storey office complex to decongest the ministerial enclave and ultimately, this is where we are going to house all the affected Departments, Ministries and Agencies, but this would take a bit of time like a year to 18 months.
“Temporarily we thought that we need to move them to a more comfortable area, so we have identified the Ghana House. It is a property that belongs to government but there are various kinds of activities going on there and the status of the edifice is nothing to write home about.”
He said the Ministry engaged the Ministry of Trade and Industry, who are the owners of the facility and collaborated with them to enhance the quality of the structure to enable us to relocate all the affected MDA’s within the tourism enclave.”
“We actually engaged a contractor who renovated about four floors, the second, the fourth, fifth and sixth floors. We have completed one level that is the second floor of the edifice for the agencies to start moving in order to have the plot for development.”
He said tourists have taste and are motivated by what they see and hear and so putting up the integrated tourism enclave would actually enhance tourism development and bring economic development.
“More particularly it would also create jobs for the teaming youth and enhance the image of Accra as well.”
Source: GNA