Work on new Foreign Affairs building to start before end of year

20/10/2010

Story: Musah Yahaya Jafaru
WORK on the new offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration at the former site of the International Students’ Hostel is expected to begin before the end of the year.
This follows the signing of a design contract between the governments of Ghana and China.
The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Mr Chris Kpodo, told the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that the two governments were expected to finalise the contract agreements by the end of the year.
The old building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was gutted by fire on October 21, last year. The fire destroyed valuable documents and office equipment whose value runs into thousands of Ghana cedis.
Officials of the Ministry initially moved to the International Conference Centre, where they operated for a few weeks before moving to the Flagstaff House as a temporary workplace.
The former site of the International Students Hostel at the Airport City, which was initially allocated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was re-zoned for residential development by the government in 2007 and the plots of land sold to 36 interested buyers for GH¢20,000 or GH¢15,000 per plot.
The 36 beneficiaries include high ranking politicians, corporate executives, and members of Parliament, the judiciary and the Ghana Police Service.
The 25-acre land has since been re-acquired by the Lands Commission and allocated to three state institutions.
The Lands Commission said with the powers conferred on it by law, it had withdrawn the sale offer, following a re-zoning of the area by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to its original civil status, and demarcated for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ghana Revenue Authority and the Public Procurement Authority for the construction of new offices.
Mr Kpodo indicated that the proposed project would contain no residential facilities but offices for the staff of the ministry.
Mr Kpodo said the staff of the ministry were not under any serious constraints at their temporary office at the Flagstaff House, stressing that they were “comfortable”.
However, he said, the staff would be more comfortable if they were able to move into the permanent office facility within the shortest possible time.