The Alatening Palace Project

Amongst the development plans and projects that ACDA had been working on was the Alatening Palace project focused on renovating the Alatening Palace and building a Palace with infrastructure of modern times. The disappearance of Fon J. C. Suhfor of Alatening in 2018 accelerated the start of the Palace Project ahead of the enthronement of the new Fon, scheduled for 06 March 2021.

Due to the critical nature of these works, the Traditional Council of Alatening imposed a moratorium on all other development projects while the Palace Works were progressing. A special Task Force with Prof. Aaron Suh TENING as its chair and Mr Augustine Chi FORKWEN, as financial controller was set up in 2019 to coordinate the design of the new Palace, the mobilization of funds and management of the  construction and delivery of the infrastructure in a transparent and accountable manner. Other members of the Special Task Force included Mafor Gladys MBUYA, ACDA President General, Elvis SAMA and the Traditional Council Chairperson, Subchief Dr Ing. Valetine ATANGANELERE.

With an estimated budget of over 25 million FCFA for the project, the Task Force set out to mobilise funds for the project through direct engagements with the Sons and Daughters, Friends and well-wishers of Alatening who contributed generously for the financing of this project. In 2020, the Task Force conceived and deployed the innovative ‘One Man, One Woman, One Drink for Development’ Initiative, championed by Osric Tening FORTON which was premised on the fact that significant sums of money for development could be raised within our community by leveraging on the volumes of individual contributions rather than the value of the individual contribution. A specific advantage of this innovative and digital approach was that significant funds were mobilised for the project at little or no cost (e.g organisation of expensive fund raising events)’. ACDA is  building on the success of this type of initiative to develop new methods of fund raising at minimal costs to the village. 

Construction works for the Palace Project were ramped through 2020, in line with increased financial resources provided to the Task Force. By February 2021, over 90% of the construction works had been completed in anticipation of the enthronement event on the 06 March 2021. Further work on the Palace Project will continue after this event.