A contractor hired to complete a market project at New Abirem has bolted with the assembly's ?30 million, leaving the job undone and the uncompleted project to weeds, snakes and rodents.

The stalled work leaves the vast Birim North District whose population is 124,000 with no market centre worth its name in sight, though the district ranks second as the largest food producer in the whole Eastern Region.

Investigations showed that the ?191 million market project was started about three years ago under the Agriculture Sector Improvement Programme (ASIP).

With some ?150 million sunk into it, the building had reached 85 per cent completion before the first contractor on the project was stopped from continuing by the NDC government for no apparent reason.

Then a second man was called in to finish it. Victor B. Ahenkora, the DCE, who could not give the names of either of the two, said he came to learn that ?60 million was granted to the Birim North Assembly to complete the project.

"Somewhere along the line, because of lack of security which the contractor was supposed to have provided and he didn't, he just collected an advance of ?30 million and vanished into thin air", the DCE explained.

On what happens to the absconded contractor and his booty, Ahenkora said the Audit Report on the assembly had directed that the assembly should endeavour to retrieve the money.

"Before I came, the matter was with our legal adviser and he is saying he can't even trace the contractor. I don't know his name either. It was a pre-arranged something and he vanished with the money."

Meanwhile, hundreds of interested traders, who applied for stalls, some from the district and neighbouring Kwahu South, are pressing for speedy action on their application, it was learnt.

In view of the urgent need to complete the project, therefore, the DCE said the assembly would soon mobilize funds for that. Chronicle took advantage of its visit to New Abirem last Saturday to inspect and investigate the controversial ?400 million residence the "Daily Guide" reported the DCE had built for himself.

It was clear that the project had been started two years before the NPP took over power and subsequently made Ahenkora Chief Executive at New Abirem. It had, in fact, reached the roofing stage at the cost of ?57 million.

What Ahenkora did was to release ?19.5 million which had been approved by the last assembly to the contractor to encourage him to complete it.

He took the money from the third quarter allocation of the Common Fund meant for last year, which was released only recently.

Assembly members and staff, opposition leaders and NPP executives interviewed also confirmed that he neither spent ?400 million from his own pocket or the assembly's coffers on the job. Indeed the whole contract sum is ?215 million.