Nkrumah's 1957 Benz to be restored?

..Ghana@50 Secretariat refused to restore it?
According to the Daily Dispatch newspaper, the Swiss Embassy in Ghana have given the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board ¢18 million to rehabilitate a Benz car used by Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah after March 6, 1957.

The car is currently rotting away at the compound of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) at Adabraka in Accra.


The GMMB sent a series of proposals to rehabilitate this car and other networks towards the March 6, 2007 celebrations to the Ghana@50 Secretariat in September 2006.


The paper said as at the close of work on Thursday, February 1, 2007, there had not been an acknowledgement from the Secretariat.

The GMMB approached the Swiss Embassy in Accra with the budget of¢ 230 million for some work at the Musuem. The Embassy inspected the work and increased the amount to ¢373 million.


On how Dr Nkrumah’s Benz came to the Museum’s premises, a GMMB source said that “about 4 ½ years ago, an elderly man approached us, claiming to be Dr Nkrumah’s former driver. He said this Benz car was the one Dr Nkrumah was using after the 1957 independence celebrations. He said he hid the car in some bushes at the outskirts of Nkawkaw after the February 24, 1966 coup d’etat. We went for the car and have since kept it here.”