When Sir Bob Geldof, the rock star-turned-Africa campaigner, visited the impoverished town of Ajumako-Bisease in Ghana, he was hailed as a saviour.

In an elaborate and memorable ceremony full of ritual and colour, the people crowned him as their chief of development, a ceremony captured on film for his Geldof in Africa TV series.

Their firm understanding was he would help the town, and they claim he said he would. But, three years on Ajumako-Bisease remains disappointed, according to a documentary. Nothing has changed. And, despite accepting his position as chief, they have not heard from Geldof since.

Ajumako-Bisease's 27,000 inhabitants believed Geldof would help them fund a new covered marketplace. They cleared a plantation to make space for it. But no funds have materialised and weeds have slowly reclaimed the land.

They hoped he would help with funding for machinery to expand their coca nut industry, but those hopes too have faded with time. They had plans for a new hospital, a clinic, even. But those have been quietly shelved. Not one penny has found its way to them.

The claims are made in the film A Letter to Geldof, a documentary by Worldwrite, a youth education charity that retraced Geldof's steps. In it, the Chief of Ajumako-Bisease, Nana Okofo Kwakora Gyan III says what he wants now is for a face-to-face meeting with Geldof to ask him: "Why?" But, despite his best endeavours, he cannot reach him.

A spokesman for Geldof said the matter was an embarrassing misunderstanding, but Geldof's memory of the events was at odds with those of the people of Bisease. "They did film there, he went to Bisease to film a story on trade. Without forewarning when he arrived there was this massive ceremony which he didn't expect. They made him an honorary chief. Of course he was going to accept that hospitality, it would have been rude not to," the spokesman said.

"The only thing he did promise was that he would return at some point for an autumn festival, which he hasn't done yet, but he will. The notion that he could in any way develop Bisease is ridiculous. He wouldn't promise something that he could not do, could not deliver.

"I think a misunderstanding is a reasonable way to put it. He certainly does not wish to criticise them, and it does not in any way diminish his appreciation of the hospitality he was shown and for the people who live there.

"The film appears to show a rather different version of events to the one he remembered, and so he did not want to be on the film."

The documentary is to be shown on March 26 at the Richmix cinema in Shoreditch, London.