The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly is set to initiate an investigation into the true cost of the multi-million dollar Rattray Park was built and commissioned under the leadership the previous Chief Executive of the Assembly, Kojo Bonsu.
It is suspected the project cost may have been inflated by as much as one million dollars.
Luv FM’s Erastus Asare Donkor reported the previous Assembly is believed to have “paid one million dollars less of the pronounced cost of four million dollars for the Rattray Park.”
The Rattray Park, a recreational facility, was commissioned by President John Mahama in 2015 to promote a healthy lifestyle for people in and around Kumasi and its environs.
The 42,000 square-meter Rattray Park has an acoustic dancing fountain; the first of its kind in Ghana. It can also boast of a six square-meter multimedia controlled fountain, children’s playground, a golf cart, wi-fi internet connectivity, an open robust gym and a cafeteria among others.
It was commissioned under the leadership of Kojo Bonsu who was then the Mayor of Kumasi but whose tenure came to an abrupt end after chiefs in the Ashanti demanded that he be replaced.
A new Mayor, Osei Assibey, appointed by president Nana Akufo-Addo is conducting an audit into the financial transactions of his predecessor and is reporting of many instances of financial misappropriation.
According to him, the KMA is suffocating under judgment debts running into millions of Ghana cedis.
Mr Assibey said the financial liabilities of the KMA as at 31st December 2016 stood at 119,213,333.22 cedis.
Waste management contractors alone are owed 63,833,626.73 cedis.
The Assembly was not insulated from the judgment debts which were rampant at some point in the country’s history.
Mr Assibey said judgement debts alone amount to about 50,602,874.45 cedis. He said within three months – October to December 2016 – judgement debts rose from 6,427,287.75 to 50,602,874.45 cedis.
As a result, an audit team has been constituted to investigate how these debts came about.
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