Nkrumah Memorial Park to be given facelift

Accra, Feb. 6, GNA - In a quest to transform the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park (KNMP) to befit its status, a Golden Jubilee Commemorative Landmark Project was on Tuesday launched to solicit for funds for the facelift of the Park.
The Project expected to raise two million dollars is to, among other things, beautify the Park and its surroundings, making it more inviting for visitors and to prepare it for the jubilee celebrations. The Project, categorized into three grades, would have names of corporate bodies and individuals engraved on granite, marble and fine bricks and placed at vantage points at the Park.
The First Class, named the Black Star, would have 200 slots and would go for 100 million cedis and be placed in front of the Mausoleum. The second, the Kente Class would have 300 slots and would go for 50 million cedis while the third, the Patriotic Class, worth 10 million cedis would also have 400 slots and be placed on the walkways. Similar ones are to be replicated at the Aburi Botanical Gardens and at the Efua Sutherland Children's Park.
In a speech read on behalf of Mr Sampson Kwaku Boafo, Minister of Chieftaincy and Culture Affairs, he said the Ministry was in the process of giving the Park, which housed the mortal remains of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, a facelift when it was informed that Integrated Broadbase System, an ICT company, had presented a proposal for the same purpose. He said the KNMP was one of the many important monuments, which deserved to be accorded a special treatment and refurbishment during the 50th anniversary celebrations due to the important role Osagyefo Dr Nkrumah played for independence.
The method for the fund-raising, he noted, had been successfully used in Atlanta, Georgia in the US, to raise funds for the construction of the Centennial Olympic Park.
In that situation, they sold commemorative bricks to citizens adding that it was his hope that Ghanaians would buy into it, set their names in stone and help to give the Park the status it deserved. Mr Robert Hrisir Quaye, Director of the Park, who gave a brief history of the Park, said it used to be the Polo Grounds where Dr Nkrumah declared Ghana's independence.
He noted that General Kutu Acheampong, Head of State and Chairman of the National Redemption Council/Supreme Military Council, mooted the idea of the Park while the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) Government brought it into fruition in 1992.
Mr Quaye said it was only befitting that the Park was accorded the status it deserved during the 50th anniversary.
Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Donkoh of the Integrated Broadbase Systems said the facelift of the Park would be a landmark during the 50th anniversary.
He said Aburi Gardens was also chosen because of its significance and historic background while the Children's Park was also selected because children were the future of this country.
"We can't celebrate the past without acknowledging the present," he said.