By: Felix Cofie
Reconstruction of 124 housing units at Appiatse is steadily progressing with a total of 6 contractors on site. The Appiatse community was razed down by mining explosives being transported to a Mining site in January this year.
Government made a commitment to rebuild the community into a modern town and therefore set up the Appiatse Support Fund to solicit for funds for the reconstruction of the community.
Addressing the media during his visit to the reconstruction site, Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources Benito Owusu-Bio, who is also Chairman of the Appiatse Reconstruction Implementation Team (ARIT) disclosed that the first phase of the construction will require about 45 million Ghana Cedis to complete and the second phase, 80 million will be needed to complete taking into consideration the slightly affected houses which will only need roofing and other petty renovations.
He said ” Where we are now is the construction stage, particularly the first phase and as you can see here, most of the contractors are working on the substructures which are made of normal blocks, others at the foundation level, some footings level and soon we will be at the flowing level with brickworks to hopefully commence in 5weeks time”.
He said the compressed earth bricks which will soon be used for the top structure of the buildings, is in line with government’s idea of an eco-friendly, sustainable, and green community which will be a model concept for other rural communities.
Hon. Benito also told the media that the partnering government agencies have been helpful so far as the Electricity Company of Ghana has provided the site with a transformer, Getfund has also signed an agreement to build the school for the community among others.
He, however, called on other government agencies who are yet to join the fray to as a matter of urgency come on board, beckoning the Roads and Highways Ministry to commence the road networks, to clear the road corridors for contractors to work freely.
Hon. Benito on his tour of the site also engaged the Brick making engineer from the Rural Housing Department, Mr. Castro Kaliebu, who disclosed that a total of 4000 bricks have so far been produced, adding that with machines of a producing capacity of 11,000 a day, they are hopeful to finish production even before the stipulated time provided they get the required electrical power to support their work.
He assured Ghanaians and the people of Appiatse that the team will continue to visit the site and keep tabs on contractors to ensure the structures they are putting up are of a high standard and quality while urging the contractors to speed up work.
With the evidence of work on-site, Honorable Benito called on Ghanaians and Friends of Ghana to donate more as the ultimate target has not yet been reached. “Work has commenced but we still have a deficit so we are pleading with all Ghanaians and others around Ghana to come and donate to enable us fully restore the lives of the victims of Appiatse”.
The Chairman, in his address, commented on a petition from the victims of Appiatse which he said demanded compensation and the structural integrity report. This he noted will be made available to assembly but for compensation, he clarified “my sole mandate is to see to the rebuilding of Appiatse, compensation is not in my purview but I’m certain the appropriate authorities will take it up and be rest assured that what we’ve been assigned to do, we will do it to the latter.
