Trade Fair Lies In Ruins Two Years After Businesses Were Demolished

The Ghana Trade Fair, which used to be a thriving business hub, lies in ruins, two whole years after the Akufo-Addo government vindictively drove out businesses and demolished buildings.

In what can be described as a downright ineptitude of the government which has destroyed local businesses, including banks, the Trade Fair remains a pile of debris with several hundreds of Ghanaians who used to be employed there now out of job.

In 2020, the Akufo-Addo government, through the Board of the Ghana Trade Fair Company Limited headed by Daniel McKorley (McDan), the notorious NPP financier who has been in the news over the capture of the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), demolished office structures of businesses at the Trade Fair.

Mr. Raymond Archer, CEO of Color Planet whose business was affected has been reported lamenting the waste and unemployment that the government’s actions have caused.

“Once they destroyed our businesses, they didn’t have money to pay the workers, they laid them all off,” Raymond Archer is quoted as saying.

He adds, “It’s been two years now and the place has become bush. They destroyed millions of businesses and allowed the place to go bush.”

The demolitions had happened in spite of the fact that businesses at the Trade Fair at the time had a case in court against the GTFCL.

Mr. Archer, whose company, Universal Labels and Packaging Co. Ltd (UNIPACK) was also affected said at the time of the 2020 demolitions that he had sunk some US$10million into the business before the government’s attack.

Meanwhile, Daniel McKorley, the Trade Fair Company Board Chairman who has also controversially been granted a monopoly over the Songoh salt lagoon and controversially allowed to build a private jet terminal at KIA, is also reported as claiming nothing of the business owners were destroyed.

Mr. McKorley of McDan is quoted as admitting that the time they undertook the demolitions were a bit shady.

“We can go in at any time, maybe the time looked a bit fishy. People might think we had something to hide but the documents state that everything is clear [sic]. Forgive me, nothing of Raymond Archer got destroyed. Ask him to show pictures of one machine that got broken,” McDan had stated.

“No! nothing got broken. I have gone there, inspected the place; I called for footage and I saw everything myself, only the roof got off and one small portion of the building was ripped off. All the printing machines were in there intact, nothing got destroyed,” McDan told host Paul Adom-Otchere on February 18, 2020.