Sunyani children’s library needs renovation
The librarian in-charge of the Sunyani Municipal Children’s Library, Madam Juliana Amiziah, has appealed to the Sunyani Municipal Assembly to renovate the library to avert the frequent flooding of the place anytime it rains.
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Madam Amiziah made the appeal through the Ghana News Agency following a heavy downpour that caused serious flooding of the premises of the library recently.
She said children patronising the library had to sit on top of tables or stand to read whenever it rained.
Books destroyed
“The place gets flooded each time it rains and this situation has existed since 2005 and lots of books have been destroyed,” she said.
She said the library served almost all schools in the Sunyani Municipality but had not seen any rehabilitation since 2005, and expressed the fear that some children could suffer electrical shocks due to the poor nature of the wiring system.
Madam Amiziah said several complaints had been made to the municipal assembly, the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and other stakeholders about the situation but had not yielded any fruitful results.
Assembly yet to help
Mr Frederick Noble Baada, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Librarian, said the library authorities threatened to close down the children’s library in 2009 when the roof was ripped off during a rainstorm.
“The assembly promised to assist to rehabilitate the facility and even asked us to submit the estimates of items destroyed and we are still waiting because we do not have funds of our own to fix these things”, he added.
Mr Baada said the library authorities would meet and decide whether to close down the library before any bad incident occurred.
Close down
“We have introduced children’s reading club, which has generated reading interest among many children and if the library is closed down how can these children get access to books?” he queried.
The Sunyani Municipal Chief Executive, Kwasi Oppong Ababio, when contacted said he could not comment on the issue because “the situation has been there for a long time”. — GNA