SADA joins capital market frenzy

The Chief Executive Officer for Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), Charles Abugri says management may look to the capital markets to raise bonds in order to finance projects in the SADA zone.

“We are doing innovative master planning at the moment with the support of Brazilians for Agriculture, the Singaporeans for urban development. How do we finance all of this?” Charles Abugri asked in justification of the move to issues bonds.

“The SADA law allows us to raise medium to long term bonds. When the institution is grounded and solid enough we will look at ways to partner Municipal and District Assemblies to raise bonds to fund commercially viable projects across the SADA zone, “he told B&FT.

He indicated that in a bid to cut cost “we have basically sold off some of our assets like tractors, hydraform machines-we needed to do that anyway because SADA does not have the capacity to run those services so we passed them on to the private sector, which has generated some resources as well as reasonable support from development partners some in kind, cash, vehicles, equipment, rehabilitation of our offices etc.”

In the wake of the mismanagement and mishandling of funds that rocked the authority, the new CEO is seeking a new beginning that will be backed by strong sources of funds and good corporate governance.

“This means when we spend a bit of money, we spend it to create ideas and prepare the projects and take them to bankability phase. When we do that it becomes easier for private companies to pick it”.

SADA was set up in 2010 as an independent agency for coordinating a development agenda for the northern savannah ecological zone of Ghana: Upper East, Upper West and the Northern Region, and north of Brong-Ahafo and north of the Volta region.

The Agency however came under severe scrutiny and criticism over an exposé on misappropriation of funds by management. Some analysts have called for the total dissolution of SADA since according to them it is not serving the purpose for which it was set up.

Following the revelation of funds mismanagement, President John Mahama ordered the termination of certain contracts under SADA in consultation with the Attorney General.

The contract terminations affected a guinea fowl rearing project and an afforestation and tree growing project.