Dr. Agnes Adu, Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Trade Fair Limited, has defended the decision to evict tenants from the facility, stating that many of them had accumulated significant rent arrears, creating financial challenges for the company.
In an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Channel One TV’s Face to Face, Dr. Adu explained that numerous tenants had failed to pay rent, with some debts reaching millions of cedis.
These unpaid rents, she noted, had led to considerable financial losses for the Trade Fair facility.
Dr. Adu revealed that efforts were made to urge tenants to clear their debts before any eviction actions were taken.
However, after multiple unsuccessful attempts and ignored eviction notices, the company had no choice but to proceed with the evictions.
“Whatever it is, your revenue is coming from that tenant, so when that tenant becomes delinquent and your business cannot run, that tenant ought to be evicted. So I came in to clean up that system and return the company to the basis. What is our core mandate, what is the commercial value that we need to unearth?
“You need good paying tenants, not delinquent tenants. The people that were evicted or I came in to meet, were all delinquent. You come in, your rent is 50 pesewas per square meter, that is problem number one. And that tenant hasn’t paid rent in three years. They defaulted, prior to me coming in. What I came to meet was an urgent situation, where every delinquent tenant had to be managed, if you are not captured, your landlord, and the Trade Fair will make sure you are evicted. The company evicted delinquent tenants.”
Background
The Court of Appeal on Monday, June 8, 2020, dismissed a case of contempt brought against the chairman and chief executive officer of the Ghana Trade Fair Company Ltd (GTFCL) after GTFCL demolished structures used as business premises by certain previous occupants of the Trade Fair site.
The officials of GTFCL were acting on the basis of a High Court ruling on February 12, 2020, which allowed them to demolish the structures.
However, some aggrieved tenants of Trade Fair filed a case of contempt against the two top officers of the company. The ruling paved for the planned redevelopment of the stretch of land belonging to Trade Fair.
The facility said prior to the demolition, on September 24, 2017, the Company sent notices to all tenants to renew their tenancy agreements for another year. Reminders followed on November 1, 2017, to renew by November 10, 2017, for the last time before the redevelopment was to start in 2019.
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