Years of total neglect and inactivity at the Kumasi Children's Park have completely crippled the facility designed for the relaxation and socialisation of children in Kumasi, especially at the weekends and on public holidays.
The park was designed not only to promote health and the culture of exercise among children, but also to enhance their socialisation to enable them to know one another and appreciate shared values.
A library facility developed at the park to facilitate research work among the children, especially during vacations to promote academic work, has also been abandoned. The facility was built to help the children develop their potential to the fullest to support sustainable socio-economic development in future.
The condition of the library, which was built with taxpayers’ money about 10 years ago, is very deplorable. The overgrown weeds round the library tell it all.
The Ghana Library Board, which was operating the library, vacated the premises a few years back, and handed the facility over to the Ghana National Commission on Children (GNCC) with the explanation that the place was not conducive for the operations of a library.
Lotto operators and weavers have taken over the facility. Apart from finding it very convenient for use as an accommodation at no cost, they also use it as the point where they operate their businesses to generate income to keep body and soul together.
Ironically, when their attention was drawn to the deplorable condition of the library, especially the roofing, which is falling apart, and the cracks in the walls, they told the Daily Graphic that the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) was responsible for the project.
This was after the Daily Graphic had inspected the library and observed that the asbestos roofing and walls were in poor shape and any delay in maintenance would see a further deterioration of the fine building.
When the attention of the Public Relations Officer of the KMA, Mrs Jemima Nancy Asare, was drawn to the deterioration of the park, she said the Kumasi Metropolitan Chief Executive was collaborating with the wife of the Asantehene, Lady Julia, to source for funds to put the park back in good shape.
She explained that the KMA, on its own, was not financially resourced enough to rehabilitate the park for use by the children in Kumasi.
The park was very lively when it was first opened to the public over a decade ago, but years of total neglect and lack of maintenance have conspired, to the deterioration of the park.
All playing gadgets at the park have completely broken down due to the usual problem of lack of maintenance, which has now become a chronic disease in the populace.
The place is now weedy and attracts all manner of characters from dawn to dusk.
A section of the youth at Anwiam, Afful Nkwanta, Amakom, Nfante New Town and Asafo, among other suburbs in Kumasi, who have no toilets in their homes find it convenient to defecate there. Some social deviants among them find the neglected park a haven for their nefarious activities.
With the grass at the park growing into shrubs and the plants growing into trees, the Children's Park is gradually becoming a mini forest in the heart of Kumasi where robbers lay ambush to unleash terror on innocent people who use the place as a thoroughfare.
Many residents, who use the place as 'short cuts' to reach the premises of the Kumasi Technical Institute (KTI) or Amakom and its environs, have been robbed at knife- and gunpoints there.
The pavilion developed at the park for children to relax after physical exercises has now become a centre of worship for some of the churches springing up in Kumasi on virtually daily bases.
The banner ‘Power of Life Ministry’ at the entrance of the pavilion tells it all that it is now a place of worship. As if that is not enough, the ‘hijacker’ has appended his name beneath the banner, ‘Rev Christopher Sarfo’ to advertise himself to the public that he is now in charge of the park, as it were.
At the extreme wing of the park near the Amakom traffic lights are scores of kebab operators, who have built a wooden kiosk to promote their business.
To them, since nature does not create a vacuum and life must go on, no matter the socio-political atmosphere of the country, they have to use the park to advertise their products which receive much patronage, anyway.
The Kumasi Children's Park is the only official public recreational grounds for the youth in the metropolis. The KMA is behaving as if the facility is of no significance to children's welfare. The place would sooner become one of the slums in Kumasi, and dislodging people there would be tantamount to dislodging people in the ‘decongestion’ exercise carried out by the KMA a few months ago.
That exercise alone, according to the KMA, cost the taxpayer about GH¢120,000 but it yielded no positive results.
It is therefore time the KMA turned the Kumasi Children's Park into a prominent tourist attraction by not only developing all the facilities to attract children far and wide to the place, but also drawing a programme to ensure the regular maintenance of all the facilities to keep them always alive.
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