Karu Market Opens Next Month

Works on Karu International Market, along Abuja-Keffi federal highway will be completed soon and allotment of shops to traders will commence next month, says Nasarawa State Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura who inspected progress of work at the weekend.

Also, the commissioner in charge of Commerce and Industries, Barrister Emmanuel Brass Yaji said the first phase of the project remodeling of the old structures was almost completed.

The multi-million naira international market, located in Mararaba on the fringe of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), was constructed by the administration of former Governor Abdullahi Adamu in 2002 with a loan facility from the now liquidated Fortune Bank.

The deal generated complications, leading to the market being abandoned in the hands of illegal occupants, until in the late days of Aliyu Akwe Doma administration, Adamu’s successor, when the state was able to repay the loan and the interest, to take over the market.

It was then handed over to the Nasarawa Investment and Property Development Company (NIPDC), but the facility remained in the hands of illegal occupants until 2011, when Al-Makura sent them out in a bid to implement his economic growth vision.

Al-Makura said the market was important to his administration because of his commitment to diversify the revenue base of the state, in what will eventually remove the over-reliance on federally allocated funds.

He said the commerce sub-sector was one of the areas where his administration is targeting yields to stock the barns of development of the fifth generation state.

The job is coming in phases, with a design of over 5,000 shops by the time the second phase is completed.

The commissioner said the second phase of the project would commence as soon as development of the first phase is completed, and will entail the construction of thousands of shops as well as an ultra modern shopping mall, warehouses and an industrial cluster.

The development of the second phase, according to Brass, will be done vertically.

[Daily Trust]