Hope City Project Relocated

Hope City

The much-touted 'Hope City' dream project expected to be developed by rLG Communications Limited at Dunkonaa, a suburb of Accra, would no longer be developed there, management of the company has noted.

The anticipated $10 billion technology park would be relocated to Prampram in the Greater Accra Region about 75 kilometers from the original location.

Chairman of the AGAMS Group of Companies and Chief Executive Officer of rLG, Roland Agambire, who confirmed the decision to relocate the project site, told CITY & BUSINESS GUIDE that 'the economic team, the architecture team and the investors met on both sides and decided. We think that place is better.'

It would be recalled that on March 4, 2013, President John Mahama cut the sod to commence the project at Dunkonaa amidst pomp and pageantry with a number of state governors from oil-rich Nigeria in attendance.

The Hope City project is expected to offer commercial floor space for banks and shopping malls.

Over 50,000 workers in the field of information and communications technology are expected to be engaged in the design and manufacturing of software and hardware for local consumption and export.

It is also expected to include a university, schools, a hospital and sporting amenities.

However, the rLG boss said from an investor point of view, the land on which they intended to develop the project was not expandable.

Justification
Mr. Agambire anticipates that the Prampram site could offer jobs to not less than 300,000 people since 'now, we are not only the IT hub, we are also looking at destination.'

In view of this, he said they considered the option and cost of acquiring more plots of land in Dunkonaa but did not succeed, insisting that 'in Prampram, we were lucky to have a bigger plot which is about 976 acres and more suitable for the investors. So all the investors and I met and visited both sites and decided to choose that area,' he noted.

Apart from that, he explained 'the Prampram area presented a better place because we are going to have this airport coming in the same place; so proximity to transportation…sending goods from the same area to the port and exporting was also considered.'

'All the investors think that this will represent the best opportunity for them to invest because it is easy for anybody to move from any part because the airport; so it is good for you to move your goods and services within the airport enclave, seminars, conferences and all kinds of things can take place,' Mr Agambire emphasized.

'Looking at Hope City, you are going to have a lot of people now coming into the place because per the investor-driven interest, we are not just looking at the ICT component. We are going to have mixed construction that will be one of the biggest malls as other downtown shopping centres to make it a lifestyle and destination place,' he noted.

That, according to him, was the reason why they relocated the project to Prampram.

When you look at the one that we sited at this place (Dunkonaa); if you go and site it there all these things cannot come between because we are going to be limited with space.'

That notwithstanding, the rLG boss indicated that 'Hope City itself is a company; so the other place (referring to the Dunkonaa site), we will still develop it into a different concept because we want to attract more investors into this country.'

By Charles Takyi-Boadu