The Abirehyiem Ebiradze Royal family of Essipun, near Sekondi in the Western Region has petitioned the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) to investigate the circumstances under which two companies paid compensation due the family to the chief of Essipun.
According to the family, the Essipun lands belong to the stool and for that matter any compensation arising out of damages to the land ought to be paid to the stool and not the chief.
The family members said they could not fathom why Ghana Gas Company and Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) who are embarking on some infrastructural developments in the area, instead of paying the family stool the compensation due, would rather write cheques payable to the chief of Essipun, Nana Kofi Abuna V (who is a woman).
The head of the family, Dr. Ken Aryeetey, speaking to DAILY GUIDE claimed the companies knew very well that the money did not belong to the chief but the stool.
He said the compensation paid to the chief is alleged to be in millions of Ghana cedis.
He explained that every stool has a stool account with a bank and that all stool monies, either by cash or cheque, were paid into that account.
He said the chief had from the assumption of office for the past 21 years deliberately refused to open a stool account, thereby collecting monies due the stool and allegedly misappropriating them without recourse to the stool.
“What is most intriguing is that Ghana Gas and GRIDCo had full knowledge that Essipun land belongs to the stool and not the chief having conducted various searches at Lands Commission Secretariat before effecting payment of compensation,” he stressed.
He said it was important for EOCO to investigate to find out why the cheques were issued in the name of the chief instead of the stool.
“It is important to find out whether cheques issued to the chief reached the stool being the direct beneficiaries of the money,” he said.
He added that if indeed the chief had embezzled monies received on behalf of the stool, then the two companies should be charged jointly with the chief as having conspired to deny the stool of money due it.
“EOCO is responsible for preventing waste of public funds and so if the companies have paid monies which had been embezzled, then they could cause financial loss to the state, which is a criminal offence under the laws of Ghana,” he said.
Essipun Chief
Reacting to the issue in an interview, Nana Kofi Abuna indicated that the case was before the Traditional Council in Sekondi but the family wrote to the council to bring the issue for settlement.
“So now the case has been given to some neutral people to resolve and so I will not comment further to commit myself,” she pointed out.
Ghana Gas
Speaking to the issue, the Director of Communications at Ghana Gas, Ernest Owusu-Bempah, remarked “I don’t think a whole entity like Ghana Gas will make payment to a person on the issue of compensation due a family; it can’t happen.”
“We don’t just work in a vacuum. We have our legal team there who will search before any payment,” adding “maybe there has been a faction that has an issue with the family, but I will find out from our legal department,” he added.
Meanwhile, efforts to get GRIDCO’s side of the story proved futile.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi