Squatters Take Over Negleted Museum

The Museum of Science and Technology in Accra has been neglected and is currently being used by a group of weavers who called themselves Bolga Basket weavers.

Work on the building started in June 1973 and was supposed to end within a period 18 months. However the project got to a standstill after 16 months. The Museum is one of the numerous projects envisioned by the late Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana.

It was meant to be a place where the nation?s socio-economic scientific interests were to be preserved. ?Chronicle? investigations gathered that the defunct State Construction Company (SCC) executed the project but failed to complete.

It was given to the company on the orders of the then government even though A-Lang Company won the contract. According to B. Opoku Acheampong, Senior Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Museum and Monuments Board, SCC did not win the contract during tender but the Supreme Military Council 1, under the late General I.K. Acheampong, gave the contract to the company.

The SCC went back to the project in February 1975 and again stopped four years later-May 1979. In June 1985, the company began to work on the building but the government terminated its contract with the SCC in January 1992, and the project was virtually abandoned.

In July 1996, the contract was awarded to Italumex Construction Firm. Three years later the company also abandoned the project for lack of funds. Opoku Acheampong intimated that an estimated amount of 8bn cedis was needed to complete the project and that persistent appeals had been made to the government and benevolent societies to raise funds for the completion of the building, which is partially completed.

There were kids defecating on the compound, women coking in some of the rooms, canes scattered all over the place while washed clothing hanged on the walls and windows of the building.

Acheampong said, the presence of the weavers had been arrested on several occasions but were released only a few minutes later by the security agencies so they just went back to the place. ?Some have made the place their permanent residence?, he said.

He explained that since the building had not been completed the consultant architect had yet hand it over to them and that the board did not have full control over the building.

According to him, the consultants appointed some persons to keep watch over the building.? They were six persons and as time went on their families joined them and finally they began their basket weaving business.? ?Now it has become difficult to control the situation,? Opoku Acheampong continued.

He indicated that as of now two Ministers have shown interest in the building but due to the huge amount of money needed to complete it, nothing has been heard from them. Acheampong called on the government and non-governmental organisations to help raise money for the completion of work on the building.